An off-kilter, hauntingly hilarious debut novel.
Barnet presents a canny portrait of the doomscroll generation, set in an absurdist near-future world.
Jenlena is 21 when animals finally seek vengeance on humans. After creatures of all sorts start attacking people around the world, California billionaire Roderick Maeve funds the development of a sonic signal that kills each and every animal on Earth. Jenlena and her best friend, Daphne, emerge into Quebec’s new normal with English degrees and little sense of purpose: Jenlena takes to stealing and reselling houseplants (which have become a stand-in for pets) and acting as a dog for hire for lonely customers, while Daphne works at a coffee shop and navigates dating a canceled musician named Jordan. Looming in every corner of this increasingly dreadful society, wracked by environmental disasters and political turmoil, are the Moon Bethlehems—a radical cult determined to save the planet. When Jenlena begins sleeping with the Roderick Maeve, the cult enemy no. 1 who is dead set on making time travel a reality, she is swept up in his exceptional privilege. This is a sharp satire of a hyperonline culture, with genuinely moving insights into modern inequality and climate crisis throughout. “We’ve all become like someone on their deathbed, calling up our old transgressions and making apologies,” Moon Bethlehem mouthpiece (and Jordan’s ex-girlfriend) Moon Cicero says. “It’s pretty easy, really, when you’ve got no real intention of changing. You know you don’t have to because you haven’t got the time.” Jenlena and her friends epitomize the wild oscillations between naïveté and cynicism that can define young adulthood, and, while each character is ridiculous at times, they are all delightfully multidimensional. In an apt formal choice, Barnet peppers in the “mental pollution” (as one character calls it) of the online world: she includes tweet-style posts and Instagram-angled poems (as well as a couple of pages of animal doodles and one single photo of Ted Cruz). This book is a great choice for fans of Patricia Lockwood’s No One Is Talking About This (2021).
An off-kilter, hauntingly hilarious debut novel.Pub Date: May 21, 2024
ISBN: 9781662602597
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Astra House
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
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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