An exceptional sequel that will leave readers eager for more.
Following the events of Black Girls Must Die Exhausted (2018), Tabitha Walker courageously navigates a risky pregnancy, an old flame, and workplace racism in Allen’s delightful sequel.
After the death of her beloved Granny Tab less than a year ago, Tabitha refuses to waste any more time on starting a family. Last year’s medical diagnosis of premature ovarian reserve failure encouraged Tab to do in vitro fertilization with a sperm donor, and she's just received the life-changing news: She’s having a son. Tab plans to raise the child alone as a “single mother by choice, much to the dismay of her ex-boyfriend Marc. Although they’ve been friends-with-benefits for the past few months, she hopes he will join the village (including her friends Alexis and Laila; unconventional doula Andouele; and Granny Tab's best friend, Ms. Gretchen, who's going to be the “glam-maw”) that it will take to help raise her baby. But then her doctor unleashes a bombshell: The baby is a girl, which means it isn't the embryo he implanted. Which means that the baby is Marc's. Suddenly, Tab’s carefully laid plans for the future go haywire in all aspects of her life. Chris, her ratings-hungry boss at the TV station where she works as a news reporter, informs her that viewers have filed complaints about seeing her natural hair on air; Marc wants to be more than friends; and her father might be having an affair, again. Over the course of nine months, Tab can’t help but wonder whether this is the happy ending she chose for herself or whether it was simply decided for her. Author Allen moves through Tabitha’s pregnancy at an efficient pace, writing with flowing, poetic prose, as in this passage when Tabitha unloosens her braids: “They felt glorious, like thick grapevines hanging from my scalp. I let my eyes linger on them lovingly. This moment was my truth. Here I was, the real me—unfurled, free, unrestrained, wild in my spirit and natural in my appearance.” Tabitha’s journey is raw and real, and Allen’s description of the different realities of motherhood is exceedingly authentic and powerful, as demonstrated through this moniker that Tabitha applies to herself: “single mother by courage.”
An exceptional sequel that will leave readers eager for more.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-313-792-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Harper Perennial/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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