A thoughtful and thorough look at toxic masculinity in American politics with a hero who’s easy to root for.
In Gulick’s novel, a female United States senator struggles against sexism, corruption, and worse in the world of Reagan-era politics.
Following the unexpected death of her husband, Belinda Hightower finds herself thrown headfirst into American politics, filling his seat as the Republican senator for the fictional Southern state of Beulahland. Feeling lost and isolated in the boys’ club of the U.S. Senate following President Ronald Reagan’s election (Belinda is not allowed to use the Senate gym because her fellow senators enjoy swimming in the nude, for example), Belinda spends most of her time just holding her hand up at the same time as everyone else during her committee meetings, doodling in her calendar, or trying to determine if someone is a Republican or Democrat based on their clothing. Her one friend is Clarissa Carp, a ruthless lobbyist who seems to take pity on Belinda and wants to help her out. Clarissa’s mentioning of a new bill piques Belinda’s interest—she soon finds herself wondering how the wording of an amendment to the bill about meat disposal might be important. At Clarissa’s suggestion, Belinda visits the pig farm of powerful Senator Oz Barroni. As he shows her the latest advancements in slaughtering pigs—as well as disposing of their waste—Belinda begins to see that the Republican Party expects her to fall in line, stop asking questions, and get on board for a pro-Christian, pro-big agriculture agenda. (Word gets back that even Nancy Reagan is disappointed in her performance, labeling her a “Republican In Name Only.”) After Barroni reveals his true, despicable colors, Belinda decides to run for office and beat her corrupt male colleagues at their own game by proposing an amendment with huge consequences for people’s health. It isn’t long before the Washington machine sets out to crush Belinda, digging up an innocent moment from her last vacation and transforming it into an accusation of assault that could derail her newfound purpose and energy…and maybe even her whole life.
Early on, Gulick captures Belinda’s frustrations with the sexist Senate while also winning sympathy from readers by illustrating how even the simplest of her actions have complicated ramifications. While Belinda seems to simply endure the humiliations inflicted by her colleagues at first, by the time her stilettos are “quivering with her rage” over her unjust treatment she has fully won readers over to her side. The author does not shy away from delving into the intricacies and minutiae of public policy and the painful process of pushing a bill into law. It can be tedious to follow Belinda’s policy analysis, but when it leads to her impressive addresses before the Senate, proclaiming that changing two words in the bill could compromise “the very foundation of our great nation,” readers will have come to believe that she is right. However, the choice to invent an imaginary Southern state feels baffling in the context of this realistic deep-dive into political machinations filled with real-life figures like Tammy Faye Bakker, several senators, and the Reagans. The attacks against Belinda’s character feel a bit far-fetched—even for Washington—but the impact of the sexual harassment and assault she suffers is made very real in Gulick’s narration, along with her ensuing and predictably frustrating search for justice.
A thoughtful and thorough look at toxic masculinity in American politics with a hero who’s easy to root for.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.
Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).
In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781250320520
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
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