Elevates the dystopian genre with snappy writing, well-drawn characters, intriguing back story, and bracing battles.
In a post-apocalyptic wasteland, a woman with special powers and a small band of underground survivors take on a cruel warlord.
Some time after worldwide catastrophic events, few people live past the age of 40. An illness called Cling can be cured only with Clear, a rare substance that’s best found with the help of a “martyr,” a person who can also read minds—like Sadie, 35. She keeps her gift hidden and uses it sparingly (it can sicken or kill), which helps her win card games to buy fuel and avoid warlords such as Gen. Gash. That’s the world aboveground; underground are “moles,” descendants of the first survivors. Polymath Rafael “Rafa” Carrera Allende, 20, lives in one such community, an enlightened bastion. Locating a supply of Clear is crucial, so when the community’s expedition crosses paths with Sadie (deathly ill after overusing her gift), she seems like the answer to its problems. Complicating matters is a tunnel recently discovered that leads from the community to a spot beneath Gash’s lair. There’s also an undeclared war between Gash and Vidar, an arms dealer who employs bounty hunter Finn, who is also Sadie’s ex. They still have a connection, even if she won’t admit it. Finn, Vidar, the community, and Sadie have all the ingredients for a knockdown battle that could end Gash once and for all, free his slaves, obtain Clear, and keep civilization going. Though post-apocalyptic novels set in a Mad Max–like landscape aren’t new, Menapace (Side Effects, 2016, etc.) and debut author Bravo make their hard-bitten world come alive with telling moments, such as a border-town tavern that offers “bowls of what was billed to be cricket mush, but that Sadie knew was roach.” In such a tale, Rafa’s community could easily be made to seem weak and namby-pamby, but the authors intelligently show the hard work, care, and tough-mindedness it takes to keep civilization going. At the same time, the good guys deliver very satisfying beat downs to the baddies in scenes of rousing, cinematic action.
Elevates the dystopian genre with snappy writing, well-drawn characters, intriguing back story, and bracing battles.Pub Date: Dec. 14, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9888433-7-0
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Mind Mess Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 16, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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
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