A promising and unique premise that falters in its execution.
Two worlds meet unexpectedly as a Hasidic woman struggles with a porn addiction.
Raizl, the protagonist of Berliner’s debut, is an 18-year-old Hasidic woman attending college to get an accounting degree. She also has a part-time job to help support her family. For these reasons, she’s allowed a laptop. This is uncommon and slightly scandalous; many in her community only have “kosher” phones or do not use smartphones or computers at all. In a culture that prizes and often mandates conformity, any sort of deviation may raise eyebrows. But Raizl’s schooling, employment, and access to the computer are the least of her deviations. She has a shocking secret: She’s addicted to internet porn. Given not only the taboo surrounding the secular internet, but also the stringent religious laws around sex and marriage, this is unthinkable in her community. As Raizl struggles to balance her job, her education, her complex family dynamics, her religious obligations, therapy, and the shidduch (matchmaking) process, her porn addiction threatens to tear her life apart. Other secular temptations—such as nonkosher food from street carts—also cause her to stray further and further from what is expected of her. The narrative has built-in suspense—Raizl’s situation is so absurd, so precarious that surely it will come to a head of some kind—but unfortunately, it takes too long for that to happen. The first half of the book drags, with little plot or even character development. Part of Berliner’s goal seems to be to humanize and tell an unexpected story about an underrepresented and much-stereotyped community; for that, she must be commended. Her representations of Hasidic culture and the Yiddish language are thorough and fluent. She also succeeds admirably in diverging from the overdone “off the derech” (leaving the Orthodox community) narrative; Raizl’s story, and her relationship to Hasidism, is much more nuanced than the oversimple tale of an oppressed woman fleeing an oppressive culture. Ultimately, however, these attributes fail to redeem a plodding story.
A promising and unique premise that falters in its execution.Pub Date: July 19, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-9821-7762-1
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2022
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 pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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