A spiritually minded novel with fine description and characterization.
A parable about living and dying that draws inspiration from various cultures and fables.
Michael Seymour has his life planned out: He’s going to finish school, run in the Olympics, and life will be smooth sailing. But after injuring himself during an important race featuring athletic scouts, Michael doesn’t know what to do; he’s never lost before. Then his girlfriend, Wendy, breaks up with him, and when he drags his best friend, Mark, out for a few drinks, the night ends with Mark getting stabbed by a man whom Michael hustled at pool. In no time at all, Michael has lost nearly everything. In a fit of anger and pain, he runs out of his house and follows trails that he and Mark used to run. He falls, hits his head, and passes out; he wakes up and sees a gate on the trail that he’s never seen before. He steps through it and finds himself in another world, in the middle of a desert, and the gate vanishes. It’s the start of a long journey that takes him to Gehenna, a hellish place where people are punished for sins; the Altar of the Cup of All Good Things, where worshippers believe that when a cup, now laying on its side, is righted, all the wrongs of the world will disappear; Paradisa, where Michael could possibly have everything he wants; and finally, Aegypt, where he must face Death. In this brief, inspirational novel, author Mendoza uses aspects of different belief systems, including Christianity, and multiple civilizations, apparently in an attempt to get readers to see their lives in a larger context and to encourage them to live to the fullest. The story moves along briskly, quickly shifting from one culture to the next as Michael pursues his journey. But the speed of the story never hampers the protagonist’s character development, and he shows true growth as it proceeds. The setting descriptions are well thought out and give the novella a solid sense of place even when the shifts between them are dramatic, such as the transition from grim Gehenna to the more peaceful Altar.
A spiritually minded novel with fine description and characterization.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Wise Tree Press
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.
An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.
Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781982112820
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.
On the orders of her mother, a woman goes to dragon-riding school.
Even though her mother is a general in Navarre’s army, 20-year-old Violet Sorrengail was raised by her father to follow his path as a scribe. After his death, though, Violet's mother shocks her by forcing her to enter the elite and deadly dragon rider academy at Basgiath War College. Most students die at the War College: during training sessions, at the hands of their classmates, or by the very dragons they hope to one day be paired with. From Day One, Violet is targeted by her classmates, some because they hate her mother, others because they think she’s too physically frail to succeed. She must survive a daily gauntlet of physical challenges and the deadly attacks of classmates, which she does with the help of secret knowledge handed down by her two older siblings, who'd been students there before her. Violet is at the mercy of the plot rather than being in charge of it, hurtling through one obstacle after another. As a result, the story is action-packed and fast-paced, but Violet is a strange mix of pure competence and total passivity, always managing to come out on the winning side. The book is categorized as romantasy, with Violet pulled between the comforting love she feels from her childhood best friend, Dain Aetos, and the incendiary attraction she feels for family enemy Xaden Riorson. However, the way Dain constantly undermines Violet's abilities and his lack of character development make this an unconvincing storyline. The plots and subplots aren’t well-integrated, with the first half purely focused on Violet’s training, followed by a brief detour for romance, and then a final focus on outside threats.
Read this for the action-packed plot, not character development or worldbuilding.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781649374042
Page Count: 528
Publisher: Red Tower
Review Posted Online: Jan. 12, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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