A well-written novel with a frustratingly inept lead.
In La-Paz’s novel, an African American woman faces challenges in dating and friendship.
Chantel Reed is a successful human resources professional in Seattle who has a hard time with relationships. She has drifted from her friends Astrid and Serenity after the death of their friend Alison; her oldest sister, Daria, the family’s maternal figure, is prickly and controlling; and she finally breaks up with her slacker boyfriend, Cameron, after she finds him cooking dinner for another woman in her apartment. Astrid and Serenity have different ideas about how Chantel should move on after the breakup. Chantel, who has always dated black men, is initially hesitant when Brandon, a white guy, asks her out. She quickly falls for him, and they come close to marriage despite push back from her family and racism from his. But when Brandon and Daria ask an attractive black man to test Chantel’s loyalty, her trust in everyone is shattered. Chantel enters a self-destructive spiral that wreaks havoc on her professional and personal lives. La-Paz has a talent for metaphor (“My novel had been deterred, so to speak, due to the fact that I was too caught up inside of my own memoir, centered on my private, addictive, captivity of the mind”) that makes this an enjoyable read. La-Paz also does a good job of exploring the challenges of female friendships and interracial relationships, although Chantel’s tendencies to misjudge and make bad decisions make her an unsuitable vehicle for exploring those challenges since her relationships are dysfunctional. The reader may find the frequency of those bad decisions grating as Chantel becomes more and more incapable of acting in her best interests, but sections written from Astrid’s and Serenity’s points of view provide welcome relief. The novel shows some evidence of updates since its original publication that lead to minor inconsistencies (for instance, characters both page and text each other), but overall the story has a timeless quality and relevancy that keep it from feeling dated and make it appealing to contemporary readers.
A well-written novel with a frustratingly inept lead.Pub Date: July 4, 2020
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 265
Publisher: HSP
Review Posted Online: April 10, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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 romance that could have used significant rethinking.
Childhood friends, almost-sweethearts, a misunderstanding, and a funeral.
Blair Lang and Declan Renshaw were best friends who went on one date before a disagreement and an accident sent them in different directions after high school. Now Blair is back from college to be with her great-aunt Lottie, who’s dying, and to support her single mother in small-town Seabrook, California. Finding a job at a coffee shop puts her in the path of her former boyfriend, since he turns out to be its owner. Can the two get past their mistakes? The novel uses the popular second-chance romance trope, but Pham fails to energize it through interesting characters. Blair’s grief over her great-aunt’s death and her plan to help her mother are overshadowed by internal monologues about her feelings, the way her friends aren’t paying attention to her, and the novel she plans to write. Declan’s distinguishing characteristic, besides being a former high school quarterback, is his skill at building birdhouses. Unsurprisingly, the couple doesn’t have much chemistry; when they embrace, their “bodies meld like…memory foam.” The wooden characters, unusual word choices (“conglomerate of pedestrians,” “litany of plants”), and odd turns of phrase (“tension melting from his eyebrows like butter melting in a warm pan”) are almost enough to obscure the lack of plot development. What passes for stakes is easily defused when Blair comes into an inheritance that saves her from working as a consultant at Ernst & Young in New York—so she can write a romance novel.
A romance that could have used significant rethinking.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781668095188
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2026
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