An intriguing, if a bit unstructured, novel of ideas about the nature of personal healing.
A psychological tale centers on a woman’s quest to calm her own inner turmoil.
In the latest novel from Tomaszek (Blood Profit$, 2014, etc.), beautiful, young Dr. Maria Caterina “Cate” Numero is an assistant professor of information technology at the University of Chicago. Readers first encounter her in a bantering philosophical conversation with a colleague (“The whole world exiled God but still fears death,” he tells her, in language typical of the whole book. “So we worship youth, logically the furthest point from death. A pox on all thumb suckers”). It quickly becomes apparent that Cate is the object of romantic pursuit by several of her colleagues and acquaintances; readers follow her on dates that range from disastrous to life-changing (the author is a former amateur opera singer, and this experience is represented here in some wonderful writing about opera in general and Puccini’s Turandot in particular). When Cate witnesses the violent death of an overbearing colleague, she’s thrown into turmoil about how to deal with her own emotions. She comes in contact with a powerfully charismatic woman named Dr. Lilith Rose, who advocates a breakthrough procedure of genetic manipulation designed to help individuals change who they are (“Enter modern science. Genetic engineering to reprogram, evolutionary biology to explain and motivate, to lead the way. And finally, technology to transform, to sculpt”). Their interactions lead to the somewhat formless novel’s talky, theoretical second act. Cate is forced to ponder elemental questions like “What price does one have to pay to tinker with creation?,” and Tomaszek handles it all with a great deal of smooth confidence, rendering huge chunks of his book’s action in the form of vivid, forceful dialogue. The complex volume’s theoretical underpinnings can occasionally result in slow reading, but what it lacks in plotting, it makes up for in its freight of ideas.
An intriguing, if a bit unstructured, novel of ideas about the nature of personal healing.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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