This slim sequel with flimsy characters makes for a quick, easy read.
Edmond Dantes, and his many identities, traverses the world in this whirlwind of a sequel.
Edmond Dantes, the Count of Monte Cristo, Sultan of Monte Cristo, Sinbad the Sailor, Sultan of Albania. Each of these is the same man, originally known as Edmond Dantes from Alexander Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo. The Holy Ghost Writer (That Girl Started Her Own Country, 2012) begins this sequel with Dantes (first introduced in the series as Sinbad the Sailor), who’s struggling with an identity crisis. He can’t determine whether he must let go of his previous lives as Edmond and the Count in order to move forward. Not only does he quickly decide to accept all his identities, he decides to create new ones. As Sinbad, he marries Haydee, previously a slave in Dumas’ book, and declares himself the Sultan of Albania. His escapades continue when he returns to Paris and reunites with Mercedes, his first love. It’s evident that their love for one another remains. Dantes courts Mercedes before proposing to her, asking that she be his second wife in his harem in Albania. Dantes continues his journey as the Sultan of Albania and encounters Raymee, daughter of Abram. Abram is in the midst of negotiating the marriage of Raymee to the caliph of Mecca. Raymee is a brazen and strong-willed woman with enchanting violet eyes. She’s resistant to becoming the caliph’s wife for fear of losing her independence, so she requests the Sultan of Albania’s help to resolve her crisis. Dantes’ adventure is fast-moving—the reader must jump from scene to scene and country to country to keep pace. These scenes, however, are thin in detail. The hero brushes aside any hint of conflict or obstacle. The characters, upon introduction, quickly fall into one of two categories: good or bad. Each character either relies heavily on the development from the previous novel or is two-dimensional. The narrative seems to borrow too much from previous works of fiction; it doesn’t sufficiently forge its own identity.
This slim sequel with flimsy characters makes for a quick, easy read.Pub Date: July 8, 2012
ISBN: 978-1480278417
Page Count: 76
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 14, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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