Buoyant and funny page by page, this book nonetheless has a sad and serious heart.
Checking in on a group of college friends as they face the realities of adulthood, one party at a time.
It’s two years after graduation from the University of Pennsylvania when we meet them, running out of mixers but not cocaine as they ring in 2008 at a New Year’s Eve party at the funky Lower East Side apartment of a couple of the guys. The point of view rotates among five key players of the extended group as they explore who they’ve become and what they feel about each other now. Looks like some are headed for love, others for substance abuse, others for lucrative careers. We will watch these threads play out as we look in on them four more times: at a Cancún wedding in 2014, a Labor Day birthday party in Amagansett in 2018, a Halloween party in suburban New Jersey in 2022, and, ineluctably, a funeral in lower Manhattan in 2024. The antic high spirits of Ginder’s earlier work—the first, The People We Hate at the Wedding (2017), was truly a riot—have shaded bittersweet; this book is about the pains of aging and the ripple effect of mistakes. Not to say there aren’t still some acerbically funny lines and great set pieces. One character has rejected a suitor with early onset testicular cancer: “I can’t believe you walked away from a guy with cancer.” “Whatever, it has a treatment rate of, like, ninety-five percent.” A newly out young man discovers an obstacle to gay romance: “All they ever wanted to do was lecture him about Larry Kramer. And nothing—not coke, or Nina Guzman, or a naked Nancy Reagan—could kill a boner quite like Larry Kramer.” The fact is, aging is no fun for this crowd. Whether they become parents or don’t, whether they find love or don’t, adulthood is a narrowing of options, a hardening of patterns, more loss than gain. “If at one point there had been a thousand paths available to her, each choice she had made had slashed that figure in half, and then in half, and then in half again.” Is part of the problem that everyone is so very white and privileged, and had a thousand paths in the first place? That doesn’t come up, but one wonders.
Buoyant and funny page by page, this book nonetheless has a sad and serious heart.Pub Date: Feb. 17, 2026
ISBN: 9781668051771
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Scout Press/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Nov. 8, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.
A love story about a life of second chances.
In Nassau, in the Bahamas, casino detective Vincent LaPorta grills Alfie Logan, who’d come up a winner three times in a row at the roulette table and walked away with $2 million. “How did you do it?” asks the detective. Alfie calmly denies cheating. You wired all the money to a Gianna Rule, LaPorta says. Why? To explain, Alfie produces a composition book with the words “For the Boss, to Be Read Upon My Death” written on the cover. Read this for answers, Alfie suggests, calling it a love story. His mother had passed along to him a strange trait: He can say “Twice!” and go back to a specific time and place to have a do-over. But it only works once for any particular moment, and then he must live with the new consequences. He can only do this for himself and can’t prevent anyone from dying. Alfie regularly uses his power—failing to impress a girl the first time, he finds out more about her, goes back in time, and presto! She likes him. The premise is of course not credible—LaPorta doesn’t buy it either—but it’s intriguing. Most people would probably love to go back and unsay something. The story’s focus is on Alfie’s love for Gianna and whether it’s requited, unrequited, or both. In any case, he’s obsessed with her. He’s a good man, though, an intelligent person with ordinary human failings and a solid moral compass. Albom writes in a warm, easy style that transports the reader to a world of second chances and what-ifs, where spirituality lies close to the surface but never intrudes on the story. Though a cynic will call it sappy, anyone who is sick to their core from the daily news will enjoy this escape from reality.
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780062406682
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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