One woman’s valuable and heartfelt journey to the next phase of her life.
A grieving widow, lost and alone, escapes to a wild terrain in this debut novel.
Sorrow can be a funny thing—just when people think that they have it in check, it sneaks up on them when they least expect it. Such is the case with Grace Irwin. After the unexpected death of her husband, Grace finds herself unmoored. She’s unsure where she belongs, and now that she doesn’t have a spouse or children (they are all grown up) to take care of, she doesn’t know who she is. In search of clarity, Grace heads to northern Ontario’s French River, and each passing day helps her cope. Eventually, she realizes that though she was happy, the life she led with her husband wasn’t the one she set out to have. Through letters and testimonies, she confesses this to him. What could Grace have been if she hadn’t gone along with the societal and patriarchal expectations that she would get married, be a wife and mother, and do nothing else? She can only answer this question as she pushes aside her past, and in doing so, she (and her new friends) finds a quiet strength and plenty of possibilities. Andrews’ work mirrors the stages of grief—in the beginning, the story feels heavy with uncertainty and doubt, but as Grace becomes surer of herself, the tale sheds her regrets. The book’s vibe reflects her healing. Countless novels trace a woman’s exploration, but here that subject rises above a cliché. Grace’s feelings are raw and she’s far from perfect, which makes her odyssey more engaging. Another piece of the narrative frame, Grace’s letters, remains engrossing because she failed to speak these words to her husband because of his pride and her fear. A host of readers should relate to this situation, but the fact that Grace writes her misgivings down as a means of catharsis becomes especially poignant. While she may not have flourished in the way she had hoped, she gets the last word. The author peppers nuggets of wisdom throughout the book, such as “There are no measurements for what’s hard, you know. Hard is hard.” These gems are worth highlighting. Like Grace, many readers are lost in a labyrinth, and it’s with honesty and a few trusted friends that they can move into the future.
One woman’s valuable and heartfelt journey to the next phase of her life.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4602-8935-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Dec. 30, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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