Exciting in form; powerful in content.
A queer Black college student alchemizes her rage into a mixed-media document exposing how her university has failed its Black community in this inventive debut novel.
In 2013, Sahara Kesandu Nwadike—her father is Nigerian and her mother African American—is a sophomore studying English in Chicago. Classes barely engage her (she dubs her intro to writing course “High School Revisited”); she feels she’s mostly there to form part of a “diversity showcase” and resents rich kids like her absentee roommate. The campus culture is one of pervasive microaggressions, with buildings named after eugenicists and the Black Student Coalition headed by white Ph.D. student “Lone Caucasian.” The book’s title refers to Black students who have dropped out, transferred, or died—including by suicide. Sahara looks set to join their ranks: She’s been drinking and cutting for years, and her substance abuse accelerates as she tries to impress a clubbing buddy. She personifies her depression as “Life Partner,” who perpetuates self-destructive behaviors such as disordered eating. Trying to rescue her from the brink are her Korean American best friend, “Ride or Die,” and her “constant crush,” Mariah. Chukwu is matter-of-fact about Sahara’s bisexual attractions and explores mental health and suicidal ideation with a sardonic but never flippant tone. The book's imaginative structure provides a lift: It takes the form of Sahara's honors thesis, inspired by her late Aunt Nita’s zine, organized into “Tracks” and filled with paper collages, chat threads, playlists, emails, and imagined dialogues. Sahara addresses the thesis committee directly, and her one-liners zing. The nicknames and party scenes grow somewhat wearisome; the plot doesn’t soar until a tragedy brought on by the university hospital’s negligence. Still, in energy this is reminiscent of Luster and Queenie.
Exciting in form; powerful in content.Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2023
ISBN: 9780358650263
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2023
A delightful and surprising story of a woman drawn through life by curiosity.
Time is fractured in this story of a woman’s life as a child, college student, and 20-something set against the development of the atomic bomb and efforts to land the first man on the moon.
When Annie Fisk was a child growing up in New Mexico, she had a best friend, Diana, who would appear and disappear in her backyard. A number of small trinkets appeared and disappeared in the same way. As Annie grew up, she decided her friend must have been imaginary, and she never told her mother or her father—a physicist working on the atomic bomb at Los Alamos—about it. After her father’s death and her graduation from high school, Annie headed to college in San Antonio, where she met and fell in love with Evelyn, a fellow college student with dreams of being a painter. But, drawn by an imaginary thread, Annie leaves Evelyn after graduation to move to Houston, with the goal of working for NASA. And she does—starting as a secretary, and then moving into programming. What begins as a straightforward story veers into science fiction territory almost unexpectedly as Annie discovers a wormhole and begins to research and test the implications of that finding with a colleague. Explorations of love, loss, science, and the edges of the universe and what is—and is not—possible in the space-time continuum collide in this story; it's reminiscent of the thoughtfulness, matter-of-fact science, and female strength of Connie Willis’ well-known time traveling series beginning with Doomsday Book (1992) as well as the world portrayed in Margot Lee Shetterly's Hidden Figures (2016).
A delightful and surprising story of a woman drawn through life by curiosity.Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2023
ISBN: 9780593543887
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
A propulsive thriller with heart that will keep readers guessing.
A husband learns his wife is hiding a secret life.
Emma and Leo have been happily married for seven years, although they’ve weathered their share of struggles (such as infertility and Emma’s cancer diagnosis). Emma’s a marine ecologist and erstwhile TV presenter whose bubbly personality is loved by all, while Leo is an obituary writer and his wife’s No. 1 fan. Both are head over heels for their young daughter, Ruby. Although Emma’s currently doing well, Leo is given the job of prewriting her obituary, a common strategy with people who are in the public eye. In his quest to write the perfect tribute to his wife, he starts looking into her past and discovers a few inconsistencies he can’t explain. Why did Emma lie about her university degree? Why is she so cagey about her life before Leo? How is she connected to a famous actress who just went missing? And, most importantly, is her name even Emma? As Emma attempts to cover up her secrets, Leo digs through their house for clues and tracks down people from her past in an attempt to figure out why she’s lying and what she’s hiding from him. The old life Emma tried so carefully to hide threatens to destroy the new life she’s built with Leo. Walsh masterfully shows both Emma’s and Leo’s points of view while maintaining an intoxicating air of mystery. As readers get to know them both, it seems unbelievable that lovable Emma could be deceiving Leo…but how else to explain the secrets he’s uncovering? The big reveal about Emma’s life manages to be both surprising and heartbreaking, with many twists and turns along the way.
A propulsive thriller with heart that will keep readers guessing.Pub Date: March 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-59-329699-8
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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