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
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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