Could use more polish, but this bright writer is leading the way into an exciting future for queer literature.
Tender, incisive portraits of trans womanhood, the ties that bind women to one another, and the complex relationships of youth.
Simultaneously aligned with queer coming-of-age story collections of previous generations and dexterously subverting and revitalizing the genre, these seven stories offer a glimpse into the future of queer literature. They capture Gen Z’s best traits: intuitiveness and self-assurance. The characters are candid and more self-aware than previous generations, but focused on the normal concerns of youth: relationships, sex, work, and how to be a person in the world. The dialogue feels natural and brings each character to life. In "Means to an End," 20-year-old Leonora has dropped out of NYU and is “the fourth tenant of the lesbian love triangle apartment.” Her roommates’ constant conflict creates a fraught living environment that frames her own low-frequency internal instability as she grows into herself and tries to figure out how to live life on her own terms. Relying on the emotional growth of the characters for propulsion, Zhou scatters her text with poetic gestures that hint at resolution but leave the characters’ preoccupations ultimately unresolved. For example, thinking about a tense conversation the night before with a woman she had feelings for, Leonora describes the apartment in detail and notes that “the light was turning soft and forgiving.” Then she does the dishes that had caused tension among her roommates the night before: “At the end of the dishes, there was an empty sink. I watched the water run down the drain for a moment.” These images suggest that, while the messiness of her life and her relationship with the woman is tidied up for now, a sense of emptiness remains; the character conveys her emotions without directly saying how she feels. The final story, “Gap Year,” documents the narrator’s life in a series of dated fragments that conclude with an insight that feels true to the protagonists of all the other stories: “Maybe what I was trying to capture in these pages was your sense of purpose, the way you seemed to cut a straight, clear path through the world….[Sometimes you] would make me feel like everything extraneous had fallen away and I lived suddenly in a clean, clear reality that seemed navigable.”
Could use more polish, but this bright writer is leading the way into an exciting future for queer literature.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9781736716847
Page Count: 180
Publisher: LittlePuss Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 26, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
The sequel to It Ends With Us (2016) shows the aftermath of domestic violence through the eyes of a single mother.
Lily Bloom is still running a flower shop; her abusive ex-husband, Ryle Kincaid, is still a surgeon. But now they’re co-parenting a daughter, Emerson, who's almost a year old. Lily won’t send Emerson to her father’s house overnight until she’s old enough to talk—“So she can tell me if something happens”—but she doesn’t want to fight for full custody lest it become an expensive legal drama or, worse, a physical fight. When Lily runs into Atlas Corrigan, a childhood friend who also came from an abusive family, she hopes their friendship can blossom into love. (For new readers, their history unfolds in heartfelt diary entries that Lily addresses to Finding Nemo star Ellen DeGeneres as she considers how Atlas was a calming presence during her turbulent childhood.) Atlas, who is single and running a restaurant, feels the same way. But even though she’s divorced, Lily isn’t exactly free. Behind Ryle’s veneer of civility are his jealousy and resentment. Lily has to plan her dates carefully to avoid a confrontation. Meanwhile, Atlas’ mother returns with shocking news. In between, Lily and Atlas steal away for romantic moments that are even sweeter for their authenticity as Lily struggles with child care, breastfeeding, and running a business while trying to find time for herself.
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-668-00122-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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