A colorful meditation on friendship and creation nested within a fictional universe.
A childhood friendship marks a young Korean-American man’s imagination for life.
Lim (The Strangers, 2013, etc.) goes full meta for a twisty, often confusing, but entertaining reflection on art, resistance, heroes, and villains. It begins simply enough, with our nameless narrator describing what it’s like to be a preteen of Asian descent living in rural Ohio. The protagonist’s most important relationship is with his friend Vu, a cipher who disappears and reappears throughout the novel. In this opening chapter, Lim tosses in a throwaway line that turns out to resonate later: “Here is one lesson that Vu taught me. It maybe doesn’t seem on the surface to be about comic books, but it is.” But from here, things get pretty weird. Strange and somewhat vague interstitial messages, all starting with the titular greeting "Dear Cyborgs," serve as the pivot between different narratives—“When I say cyborgs, of course I mean us,” the book explains later. Following the introduction, Lim abruptly cuts to the narrative of cyberpunk detective Frank Exit, who is hot on the heels of a cultural terrorist named Ms. Mistleto. The hyperkinetic chapters focused on their conflict find the duo chasing each other in far-flung locales from Sri Lanka to the Himalayas. Yet other chapters find the primary narrator, a writer, deep in discussions with his sister and other friends on topics largely centered on the nature of art and protest and ranging from a Bangladeshi artist who commits suicide to the activist and Black Panther Richard Aoki. The villain Ms. Mistleto also becomes a flesh-and-blood character complete with an origin story. “Losing everything does gift you with freedom if nothing else,” she explains. “That’s a rewrite of a pithier song refrain.” It’s not always easy to follow; at one point, Lim randomly inserts a chapter from the detective novel that one of the book’s fictional characters is reading. But it is eerily reflective of our fractured times, darting from subject to subject with the speed of a mouse click.
A colorful meditation on friendship and creation nested within a fictional universe.Pub Date: June 6, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-374-53711-1
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: March 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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