Short and sour (and grimly comic), this is a portrait of toxic parents, the mother in particular, as narrated by their daughter, a woman inevitably shaped by lifelong proximity to manipulative elders.
In her seventh book, noted British writer Riley once again applies her meticulous method to intimate relationships, working with pinpoint precise dialogue and close focus to convey an immersive, intense sense of character (generally flawed). In this new book, the territory is a family foursome: father Lee Grant, his wife, Helen, and their two daughters, Michelle and Bridget. Bridget narrates, dwelling first on weekends spent with her father, whom Helen left after seven years of marriage. A vainglorious, unpleasant bully—mocking, cruel, infantile—Lee is a father whose presence is at best to be endured, as both girls learn. Helen’s self-absorption is based on a different, less boastful, but equally problematic presentation: a kind of indignant, disappointed expectation that life has not delivered the normality she deserved. Her exhausting world of self-delusion is sad and false, and adult Bridget makes it her business to stay away from it. But the novel’s larger part is devoted to interactions between Helen and Bridget, at dreadful annual meals and then a longer visit Bridget must make to her mother’s apartment while Helen recuperates from an operation. Constant humoring is Bridget’s preferred mode, interspersed with occasional teasing, hedged in by high barriers, like never introducing her mother to her flat or her live-in boyfriend. “Do you want me to tell you why, Mum? Why I have to keep things separate? How many sentences do you think you can take on that subject?” This unspeakable, unbreakable connection continues even as circumstances change and worsen, and Riley tracks matters to their quietly lacerating conclusion.
A supremely discomfiting parent-child horror story delivered in pointillist style.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-68137-681-3
Page Count: 208
Publisher: New York Review Books
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
Categories: FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | LITERARY FICTION | GENERAL FICTION
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BOOK REVIEW
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
52
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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. 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
Categories: ROMANCE | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE | GENERAL ROMANCE | GENERAL FICTION
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SEEN & HEARD
Sure to enchant even those who have never played a video game in their lives, with instant cult status for those who have.
17
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The adventures of a trio of genius kids united by their love of gaming and each other.
When Sam Masur recognizes Sadie Green in a crowded Boston subway station, midway through their college careers at Harvard and MIT, he shouts, “SADIE MIRANDA GREEN. YOU HAVE DIED OF DYSENTERY!” This is a reference to the hundreds of hours—609 to be exact—the two spent playing “Oregon Trail” and other games when they met in the children’s ward of a hospital where Sam was slowly and incompletely recovering from a traumatic injury and where Sadie was secretly racking up community service hours by spending time with him, a fact which caused the rift that has separated them until now. They determine that they both still game, and before long they’re spending the summer writing a soon-to-be-famous game together in the apartment that belongs to Sam's roommate, the gorgeous, wealthy acting student Marx Watanabe. Marx becomes the third corner of their triangle, and decades of action ensue, much of it set in Los Angeles, some in the virtual realm, all of it riveting. A lifelong gamer herself, Zevin has written the book she was born to write, a love letter to every aspect of gaming. For example, here’s the passage introducing the professor Sadie is sleeping with and his graphic engine, both of which play a continuing role in the story: “The seminar was led by twenty-eight-year-old Dov Mizrah....It was said of Dov that he was like the two Johns (Carmack, Romero), the American boy geniuses who'd programmed and designed Commander Keen and Doom, rolled into one. Dov was famous for his mane of dark, curly hair, wearing tight leather pants to gaming conventions, and yes, a game called Dead Sea, an underwater zombie adventure, originally for PC, for which he had invented a groundbreaking graphics engine, Ulysses, to render photorealistic light and shadow in water.” Readers who recognize the references will enjoy them, and those who don't can look them up and/or simply absorb them. Zevin’s delight in her characters, their qualities, and their projects sprinkles a layer of fairy dust over the whole enterprise.
Sure to enchant even those who have never played a video game in their lives, with instant cult status for those who have.Pub Date: July 5, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-32120-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2022
Categories: LITERARY FICTION | GENERAL FICTION
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