A gritty music story/romance with an endearing narrator.
A novel focuses on the journey of a washed-up rock star who becomes an unlikely father figure.
Damen Warner is the frontman for the band OBNXS, which has just been dumped by its label. Damen lives with a motley crew of roommates and a rooster in Chicago who are on a downward spiral: “It hadn’t taken long for” the band’s “bad habits to settle into a routine…boozing and jamming,” messing around with “dancers and drugs…until the sun came up and the whole cycle started over again.” But there is hope for the group when an investor agrees to help fund its next project. Though Damen’s career has taken a positive turn, his personal life is in upheaval. He has fraught dealings with his family; he is struggling to get inspiration for his latest album; and he is unclear about the terms of his relationship with Melody, a stripper at a club he frequents. When he is called in to babysit Melody’s daughter, Victoria, at the last minute, he begins to form a bond with the girl, instructing her to stand up to school bullies and even taking her trick-or-treating. As he and the band try to record a new album, they join forces with a millennial blogger who helps OBNXS go viral, capitalizing on Damen’s public escapades. But Damen and Melody’s relationship is tested as he struggles to cope with her clients and Victoria’s father, a rich guy who hates the musician and wants to take the child from her mother. In this engaging, well-crafted sequel, Damen’s narrative voice is distinct, raw, and cynical, just right for a 30-year-old rock star trying to get back on top. Gebien establishes Damen’s voice from the very first page. The protagonist warns readers: “Well, congratulations. It’s all downhill from here. You don’t have to turn back—it’s a free country. You can do what you want. Go ahead and stare at the sun while you’re at it: it will probably cause less damage to your retinas than the escalating indecency ahead. Still here? God help you.” But for all the discussion of Damen’s rock dreams, he doesn’t make much music throughout the course of the book. This is one rich area that could have been further explored.
A gritty music story/romance with an endearing narrator.Pub Date: July 28, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-578-38589-1
Page Count: 342
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: June 23, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A quick read that offers a fun, modern update on the lives of a royal family many know and love.
In the 12th installment of the Princess Diaries series, Cabot brings readers back to Genovia in the year 2020 as Princess Mia navigates her hardest, wackiest challenges yet.
It’s March 2020, and for Princess Mia Thermopolis, it’s not all sunshine and pears in the royal palace. Not only has she just been informed by the prime minister that there is a worldwide pandemic, but her own grandmother has just been seen partying on a yacht with several fratty spring breakers from America. Within days, Mia issues a quarantine for the residents of Genovia, closing their small country’s borders…much to the dismay of her bar-owning Cousin Ivan and a family of bakers conveniently named the Paninis. When Mia’s husband, Michael, is exposed to the virus and ordered to self-isolate, Mia resorts to day-drinking and sweatpants-wearing, all in an attempt to remain sane with the entire Thermopolis family under one roof. Over the course of early quarantine, the number of palace inhabitants begins to resemble a small country, including Mia’s best friend, Lilly; ex-frenemy Lana and her Beyoncé-ified kids, Purple Iris and Sir Jason Junior; and her “InFLUENZer” Grandmère’s new American friends, Chad and Derek. While Mia works to maintain a semblance of normalcy within Genovia, conditions begin to escalate for the worse. Ivan sues her for disrupting the sale of booze, her other cousin Prince René stages anti-mask protests outside the castle walls, Michael is creating a vaccine with his high school ex-girlfriend, and Grandmère declares that she and Derek are engaged to be married. Can Mia protect her country from a deadly virus amid family lawsuits, purchases of 5,000 wedding napkins, and one ancient, pool-drinking cat named Fat Louie? Cabot’s beloved princess has grown into a strong, resilient leader, though her pandemic problems are perhaps relatively mild compared to those of real European countries. Regardless, Mia’s quirky and honest diary entries are a welcome take on subject matter readers know all too well.
A quick read that offers a fun, modern update on the lives of a royal family many know and love.Pub Date: March 28, 2023
ISBN: 9780063291935
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2023
Miller makes Homer pertinent to women facing 21st-century monsters.
A retelling of ancient Greek lore gives exhilarating voice to a witch.
“Monsters are a boon for gods. Imagine all the prayers.” So says Circe, a sly, petulant, and finally commanding voice that narrates the entirety of Miller’s dazzling second novel. The writer returns to Homer, the wellspring that led her to an Orange Prize for The Song of Achilles (2012). This time, she dips into The Odyssey for the legend of Circe, a nymph who turns Odysseus’ crew of men into pigs. The novel, with its distinctive feminist tang, starts with the sentence: “When I was born, the name for what I was did not exist.” Readers will relish following the puzzle of this unpromising daughter of the sun god Helios and his wife, Perse, who had negligible use for their child. It takes banishment to the island Aeaea for Circe to sense her calling as a sorceress: “I will not be like a bird bred in a cage, I thought, too dull to fly even when the door stands open. I stepped into those woods and my life began.” This lonely, scorned figure learns herbs and potions, surrounds herself with lions, and, in a heart-stopping chapter, outwits the monster Scylla to propel Daedalus and his boat to safety. She makes lovers of Hermes and then two mortal men. She midwifes the birth of the Minotaur on Crete and performs her own C-section. And as she grows in power, she muses that “not even Odysseus could talk his way past [her] witchcraft. He had talked his way past the witch instead.” Circe’s fascination with mortals becomes the book’s marrow and delivers its thrilling ending. All the while, the supernatural sits intriguingly alongside “the tonic of ordinary things.” A few passages coil toward melodrama, and one inelegant line after a rape seems jarringly modern, but the spell holds fast. Expect Miller’s readership to mushroom like one of Circe’s spells.
Miller makes Homer pertinent to women facing 21st-century monsters.Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-316-55634-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
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