This novel addresses an engaging topic, but its unlikable narrator and tendentious prose drag it down.
In Daniels’ (The Situation, 2014, etc.) latest novel, a psychotherapist takes a break from his usual existence when he gets tired of listening to other people’s problems, but he finds it’s not so easy to leave the couch behind.
Daniel Pierce’s personal life has been going downhill since his wife, Lisa, died six months earlier. His professional therapy work mainly deals with sex addicts “because they have no where [sic] else to go—nowhere to get proper treatment, anyway.” One evening, when he’s burnt out and bored, he meets a beautiful ex-prostitute named Lira, who solicits his help in finding one of his patients, Derek Metcalf, who’s been accused of molesting his own son. Pierce demurs, citing therapist/patient confidentiality, but he’s drawn to Lira and happy to use her to disrupt “the diffuse fabric of my life.” He cancels appointments, abandons his apartment, and lets Lira (who’s worried by his drinking) pull strings to get him into a sober-living residence. In the kind of coincidence that doesn’t happen outside novels, Pierce’s roommate turns out to be Derek Metcalf himself. They strike up an informal, therapeutic relationship until Metcalf disappears again and Pierce receives a subpoena to testify against him. Meanwhile, a psychologist friend also wants Pierce’s help to fight a bill that aims to change the required reporting guidelines for mental health professionals treating sex offenders—one based on a controversial real-life California law. Daniels sheds light on an important issue in this novel: how should society treat sex offenders, especially those whose crimes lie in thought and not in action? However, although the book refers more than once to Pierce’s likability and listening skills, many readers may find that his first-person narration contradicts those traits. Instead, the character comes across as pompous and judgmental, with contrarian stances on feminist issues. For instance, after “expounding upon all the disadvantages men feel in the realm of sex” to Lira, Pierce claims that “sex for men equaled chocolate for women—vices resentfully spurned, but seized in times of rebellion.”
This novel addresses an engaging topic, but its unlikable narrator and tendentious prose drag it down.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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