In a word: Wow.
Two women—between them, survivors of the Bosnian genocide, a Hollywood rape, the American media, and a career with the Mossad—face off.
You might think that a book inspired by the role of Rose McGowan in the fall of Harvey Weinstein would have a fairly predictable story arc, but this barn burner of a novel handily incinerates that assumption. With an ambitious story structure recalling the work of Anthony Marra, Schulman has engineered a series of breathtaking aha moments, set to go off like timed explosives located in Paris, Sarajevo, Tel Aviv, Los Angeles, and a retirement community in Florida. It begins on the Boulevard Saint-Germain, where a violet-eyed 24-year-old fugitive named Meredith Montgomery has come to hide from a media shitstorm and career implosion she incited by complaining on Twitter about her rape by a Hollywood mega-creep she calls the Rug—to hide from it, but also to write a memoir about it, nondisclosure agreement be damned. Schulman’s creation of Meredith is perfect. For example, describing her flight to Europe: “For exercise and to prevent blood clots, occasionally I’d prop up on an elbow to flag down a flight attendant so I could order additional mini-bottles of whiskey—waving an arm in the air burns more calories than not waving an arm in the air—and when I actually stood, I swayed (that does, too). Whether the oscillation was from an inborn sense of rhythm, turbulence, or a history of drug abuse, it’s hard to tell—time is running out now, and I have more existential problems than the fact that maybe I shouldn’t have done so much ayahuasca.” When a lawyer tells her she can’t bring charges against the Rug—“Way too late for that. His word against yours, you lose. Forget about it”—her first thought is: a haiku! Before we meet her counterpart, a woman of many names and careers (including a humorously evoked stint with Birthright), the second section opens with an extended guessing game, a bravura tactic introducing a city and a character whose relevance is not immediately clear. It's like Meredith, the novice memoirist, says: “That’s what I like about book writing, you can play around with time, find its most meaningful iteration.” Schulman has certainly done that here, in her finest work to date.
In a word: Wow.Pub Date: June 6, 2023
ISBN: 9780593536230
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.
A year in the life of the No. 2 boarding school in America—up from No. 19 last year!
Rumors of Hilderbrand’s retirement were greatly exaggerated, it turns out, since not only has she not gone out to pasture, she’s started over in high school, with her daughter Shelby Cunningham as co-author. As their delicious new book opens, it’s Move-In Day at Tiffin Academy, and Head of School Audre Robinson is warmly welcoming the returning and new students to the New England campus, the latter group including a rare midstream addition to the junior class. Brainiac Charley Hicks is transferring from public school in Maryland to a spot that opened up when one of the school’s most beloved students died by suicide the preceding year. She will be joining a large, diverse cast of adult and teenage characters—queen bees, jealous second-stringers, boozehounds young and old, secret lesbians, people chasing the wrong people chasing other wrong people—all of them royally screwed when an app called Zip Zap appears and starts blasting everyone’s secrets all over campus. How the heck…? Meanwhile, it seems so unlikely that Tiffin has jumped up to the No. 2 spot in the boarding-school rankings that a high-profile magazine launches an investigation, and even the head is worried that there may have been payola involved. The school has a reputation for being more social than academic, and this quality gets an exciting new exclamation point when the resident millionaire bad boy opens a high-style secret speakeasy for select juniors in a forgotten basement. It’s called Priorities. Exactly. One problem: Cinnamon Peters’ mysterious suicide hangs over the book in an odd way, especially since the note she left for her closest male friend is not to be opened for another year—and isn’t. This is surely a setup for a sequel, but it’s a bit frustrating here, and bobs sort of shallowly along amid the general high spirits.
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9780316567855
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.
A dramatic, complex imagining of the origins of Stonehenge.
In about 2500 B.C.E. on the Great Plain, Seft and his family collect flints in a mine. He dislikes the work, and the motherless lad hates the abuse he gets from his father and brothers. He leaves them and arrives at a wooden monument where sacred events such as the Midsummer Rite take place. There are also circles of stones that help predict equinoxes, solstices, even eclipses. This is a world where the customary greeting is “May the Sun God smile on you,” and everyone is a year older on Midsummer Day. Except for a priestess or two, no one can count beyond fingers and toes—to indicate 30, they show both hands, point to both feet, then show both hands again. Casual sex is common, and sex between women is less common but not taboo. Joia, a young woman who becomes a priestess, wonders about her sexuality. After a fire destroys the Monument, she leads a bold effort to rebuild it in stone. To please the gods, they must haul 10 giant stones from distant Stony Valley. Of course neither machinery nor roads exist, so the difficulties are extraordinary. Although the project has its detractors, hundreds of able-bodied people are willing to help. Craftspeople known as cleverhands construct a sled and a road, and they make the rope to wrap around the stones. Many, many others pull. And pull. Meanwhile, the three principal groups—farmers, woodlanders, and herders—all have their separate interests. There is talk of war, which Joia has never seen in her lifetime. Soon it seems inevitable that the powerful farmers will not only start one but win it, unless heroes like Seft and Joia can come up with a creative plan. But there is also the matter of love for Joia in this well-plotted and well-told yarn. The story has a lot of characters from multiple tribes, and they can be hard to keep track of. A page in the front of the book listing who’s who would be helpful.
Vintage Follett. His fans will be pleased.Pub Date: Sept. 23, 2025
ISBN: 9781538772775
Page Count: 704
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
