A brilliant novel with much to say about work, family, excess, identity, and love.
A jaded content moderator gets more than she bargained for, on the job and off.
Having been a content moderator at social media site Reeden for an unheard-of 10 years, 30-something Filipina Girlie Delmundo excels at her job. Girlie works in the company’s Vegas location, where her family relocated after her mother and aunts snapped up pricey real estate and then lost everything in the 2008 stock market crash, forcing Girlie’s mother to sell their family home in Milpitas and saddling her with a million dollars in debt. Sardonic, prickly, “battle-hardened bisexual” Girlie uses the money she earns to buy her materialistic mother designer goods and pay down the family debt. In conjunction with L’Olifant, a French company known for its historical theme parks, Reeden acquires virtual reality company Playground, and Girlie meets William Cheung, one of Playground’s first employees and current Global Head of Content Moderation. William offers Girlie a promotion (and a massive raise) to join the Playground team moderating content in real time in the company’s virtual reality landscapes. Playground’s goal is not strictly realism but “larger than life. Realer reality. Sensory overload,” as Girlie observes. As Playground grows, regulatory troubles and scandals—there’s a lingering mystery surrounding the death of Edison Lau, Playground’s founder and William’s friend—swirl around the company. These developments, along with the horrifying realization of the mutual attraction growing between her and the aloof William, threaten the meticulous construction that Girlie has made of her career and her life. With this novel, her second after America Is Not the Heart (2018), Castillo raises the bar for writing about tech and virtual reality, family stories, and workplace romances. Castillo’s gorgeous prose infuses both the real world and the virtual reality landscapes with life. Girlie is an exceptional protagonist, defined by her cutting humor and dogged, almost maniacal independence and rounded out by her fondness for her exuberant, naïve cousin Maribel, the rawness of her feelings for William, and her yearning for true happiness, if she can find a way to let it in.
A brilliant novel with much to say about work, family, excess, identity, and love.Pub Date: Aug. 5, 2025
ISBN: 9780593489666
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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