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PROBLEMS

Name: PROBLEMS
Author: Jade Sharma
ISBN: 978-1-56689-442-5

by Jade Sharma ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 5, 2016

An absorbing novel carried by a seemingly hopeless protagonist you will want to befriend and save.

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The sardonic story of one woman’s eating disorder and drug abuse.

Maya, the appealing protagonist of this aptly titled debut novel, is not OK. Her husband, Peter, is an alcoholic; her mother is dying of multiple sclerosis; her late father gave her no attention or affection while he was alive; she is having an affair with a comparably unloving father figure, her professor; she has been unable to get pregnant, despite desperately wanting a child; she is anorexic, living on, at most, 400 calories’ worth of peach yogurt a day; and, on top of all this, or maybe because of it, she’s been regularly using heroin—a “chipper”—since she was 18. At first, Maya tries to keep her habit minimal, never using more than three days in a row. But when Peter leaves her, those boundaries vanish; she thinks to herself, “Just be a junkie now.” To earn money for drugs, she cruises Craigslist for men willing to pay for dates and intimate encounters. And so begins a cycle of varyingly violent sex, extreme heroin use, and lost days. The ease of such a life leaves little motivation to stop. “Also,” she writes, “I wasn’t thin and blond. I could have cleaned up if I was.” In graceful prose, the narrator recounts the hours spent high: “Sounds folded back into the world, moving on, light-years from the living room where I lay around, hardly living.” The novel is written so well that the relentless and destructive rhythm of heroin abuse seems calming, metaphysical, and occasionally even funny. Sharma's descriptions are vivid and sage—“Sometimes it felt like there was blackness underneath everything. Like a Rothko painting, how the blackness bleeds through”—lulling readers into a similarly opiate state to which they will readily succumb and from which, like the protagonist, it will take some time to recover.

An absorbing novel carried by a seemingly hopeless protagonist you will want to befriend and save.

Pub Date: July 5, 2016

ISBN: 978-1-56689-442-5

Page Count: 208

Publisher: Coffee House

Review Posted Online: April 12, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2016

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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SWIMMING LESSONS

by Claire Fuller ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 7, 2017

Simmering with tension, this tragic, albeit imperfect, mystery is sure to keep readers inching off their seats.

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A forsaken family bound by grief still struggles to pick up the pieces 12 years after their mother’s death.

When famous author Gil Coleman sees “his dead wife standing on the pavement below” from a bookshop window in a small town on the southern coast of England, he follows her, but to no avail, and takes a near-fatal fall off a walkway on the beach. As soon as they hear word of his accident, Gil’s grown daughters, Nan and Flora, drop everything and return to their seaside family home in Spanish Green. Though her father’s health is dire, Flora, Gil’s youngest, can’t help but be consumed by the thought that her mother, Ingrid—who went missing and presumably drowned (though the body was never found) off the coast more than a decade ago—could be alive, wandering the streets of their town. British author Fuller’s second novel (Our Endless Numbered Days, 2015) is nimbly told from two alternating perspectives: Flora’s, as she re-evaluates the loose ends of her mother’s ambiguous disappearance; and Ingrid’s, through a series of candid letters she writes, but never delivers, to Gil in the month leading up to the day she vanishes. The most compelling parts of this novel unfold in Ingrid’s letters, in which she chronicles the dissolution of her 16-year marriage to Gil, beginning when they first meet in 1976: Gil is her alluring professor, they engage in a furtive love affair, and fall into a hasty union precipitated by an unexpected pregnancy; Gil gains literary fame, and Ingrid is left to tackle motherhood alone (including two miscarriages); and it all bitterly culminates in the discovery of an irrevocable betrayal. Unbeknownst to Gil and his daughters, these letters remain hidden, neglected, in troves of books throughout the house, and the truth lies seductively within reach. Fuller’s tale is eloquent, harrowing, and raw, but it’s often muddled by tired, cloying dialogue. And whereas Ingrid shines as a protagonist at large, the supporting characters are lacking in depth.

Simmering with tension, this tragic, albeit imperfect, mystery is sure to keep readers inching off their seats.

Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2017

ISBN: 978-941040-51-5

Page Count: 368

Publisher: Tin House

Review Posted Online: Oct. 4, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2016

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TRUE COLORS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 9, 2009

Above-average formula fiction, making full display of the author’s strong suits: sense of place, compassion for characters...

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Female rivalry is again the main preoccupation of Hannah’s latest Pacific Northwest sob saga (Firefly Lane, 2008, etc.).

At Water’s Edge, the family seat overlooking Hood Canal, Vivi Ann, youngest and prettiest of the Grey sisters and a champion horsewoman, has persuaded embittered patriarch Henry to turn the tumbledown ranch into a Western-style equestrian arena. Eldest sister Winona, a respected lawyer in the nearby village of Oyster Shores, hires taciturn ranch hand Dallas Raintree, a half-Native American. Middle sister Aurora, stay-at-home mother of twins, languishes in a dull marriage. Winona, overweight since adolescence, envies Vivi, whose looks get her everything she wants, especially men. Indeed, Winona’s childhood crush Luke recently proposed to Vivi. Despite Aurora’s urging (her principal role is as sisterly referee), Winona won’t tell Vivi she loves Luke. Yearning for Dallas, Vivi stands up Luke to fall into bed with the enigmatic, tattooed cowboy. Winona snitches to Luke: engagement off. Vivi marries Dallas over Henry’s objections. The love-match triumphs, and Dallas, though scarred by child abuse, is an exemplary father to son Noah. One Christmas Eve, the town floozy is raped and murdered. An eyewitness and forensic evidence incriminate Dallas. Winona refuses to represent him, consigning him to the inept services of a public defender. After a guilty verdict, he’s sentenced to life without parole. A decade later, Winona has reached an uneasy truce with Vivi, who’s still pining for Dallas. Noah is a sullen teen, Aurora a brittle but resigned divorcée. Noah learns about the Seattle Innocence Project. Could modern DNA testing methods exonerate Dallas? Will Aunt Winona redeem herself by reopening the case? The outcome, while predictable, is achieved with more suspense and less sentimental histrionics than usual for Hannah.

Above-average formula fiction, making full display of the author’s strong suits: sense of place, compassion for characters and understanding of family dynamics.