A dialogue-rich book that explores the emotional turmoil of adolescence.
Seventeen-year-old fraternal twins start a podcast searching for their biological father, and it goes viral.
Savannah McClair is a high schooler who has lots of opinions and no trouble standing up to her twin brother, Thomas, but she lets her best friend, Trigg, boss her around and tell her what to do. Thomas is in a similar situation with his twin sister and his best friend, Nico, who tears him down every chance he gets. The twins are being raised by their well-to-do grandmother, whom they call by her first name, Maggie, in Minneapolis. Their mother, Bess, found out she was pregnant just before her college graduation and moved home, where she and Maggie raised the kids until her untimely death when the twins were almost 13. When Savannah and Thomas decide they want to broadcast their search for their father via podcast, they team up with a high-octane producer with a laser focus on getting the show as much attention as possible. This is a slow-moving story told sequentially and from the points of view of Maggie, Thomas, Savannah, and Jack, a man living in Georgia who could be the children’s father. The story unfolds in a variety of formats, utilizing third-person narrative, letters, texts, social media posts, and voicemail and podcast transcripts. Author Anthony is particularly adept at sharing the conflicting emotions of adolescence and the fear of not being good enough that can extend into adulthood, but there is little tension in the story to pull the reader along. Instead, significant attention is given to frequent fights between the twins as they struggle with who they are, who their mom was, and where they should draw the line between public and private.
A dialogue-rich book that explores the emotional turmoil of adolescence.Pub Date: July 28, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-7783-0874-4
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Park Row Books
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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 debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.
A high school senior pursues an affair with her teacher.
Seventeen-year-old Waldo, the narrator of McCurdy’s fiction debut, lives in Anchorage, Alaska, with her mother, though she’s long been the parent in their relationship. She heats her own frozen meals and pays the bills on time while her mom chases man after man and makes well-meaning promises she never keeps. Waldo blows her Victoria’s Secret wages on online shopping sprees and binges on junk food, inevitably crashing after the fleeting highs of her indulgences. Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher, has “thinning hair and nose pores”; he’s 40 years old and married with a child. Nevertheless—or possibly as a result?—Waldo’s attraction to him is “instant. So sudden it’s alarming. So palpable it’s confusing.” Mr. Korgy professes to want to keep their friendship aboveboard, but after a sexual encounter at the school’s winter formal that she initiates, an affair begins. Will this reckless pursuit be the one that actually satisfies Waldo, and is she as mature as she thinks she is? Waldo is a keen observer of people and provides sharp commentary on the punishing work of female beauty. Readers of McCurdy’s bestselling memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died (2022), will surely be curious about the tumultuous mother-daughter relationship, and it is one of the novel’s highlights, full of realistic pity and anger and need. (“I want to scream at her. I want her to hug me.”) Unfortunately, the prose is often unwieldy and sometimes downright cringeworthy: When Waldo tells Mr. Korgy she loves him, “The words hang in the air in that constipated way they do when you know that you shouldn’t have said them.” Waldo frequently lists emotions and adjectives in triplicate, and events that could be significant aren’t sufficiently explored or given enough space to breathe before the novel races on to the next thing.
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593723739
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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