A well-drawn but ultimately tedious zoological allegory of American politics.
Pedigo gives former presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump the Animal Farm treatment in this political allegory.
It’s been a few months since the animals of the City Zoo overthrew their human keepers and declared their independence. After a few unsuccessful attempts to reassert control, the city’s mayor has decided to let them have it, leaving the animals to govern the zoo at their own discretion. The animals quickly adopt the signifiers of nationhood—a flag, an Independence Day, a national anthem (“Animals of ev’ry kingdom, / Hearken to our tale of hope. / How we won the keys to freedom. / No more bars, or chains, or rope”). The business of governing, however, proves quite a bit harder. The thought leaders behind the initial revolution set up a power-sharing government with an Animal Zookeeper working alongside representatives of the zoo’s various habitats. Keeping order among the menagerie proves difficult, however. The monkey-run newspaper has its own agenda, and the predators—who agreed to go vegetarian during the revolution—start to break their truce. When the wise impartial leader Leo the lion dies, coalitions arise to fill the vacuum. There’s bound to be a showdown, but do either of the rival Animal Zookeepers—Gus the elephant or Balthazar the donkey—really represent the best interests of all species? The prose has the ironic distance of a folk tale: “The media latched on to Balthazar’s accusation that Gus was in league with the People somehow. After he was barred from Primate Plaza, the popular elephant began giving speeches to overflow crowds over in Picnic Park.” Pedigo displays impressive imagination when it comes to bringing this animal society to life, so much that his ham-fisted retelling of the Trump era—with Gus as Trump, Balthazar as Obama, and the “two-toed sloth Brandon” as Biden—feels like a waste of the world. It’s a sluggish, predetermined story, and its insights into the political process are neither novel nor profound. Readers would be better off just picking up Orwell again.
A well-drawn but ultimately tedious zoological allegory of American politics.Pub Date: July 17, 2024
ISBN: 9798350959369
Page Count: 240
Publisher: BookBaby
Review Posted Online: Aug. 14, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
The sequel to It Ends With Us (2016) shows the aftermath of domestic violence through the eyes of a single mother.
Lily Bloom is still running a flower shop; her abusive ex-husband, Ryle Kincaid, is still a surgeon. But now they’re co-parenting a daughter, Emerson, who's almost a year old. Lily won’t send Emerson to her father’s house overnight until she’s old enough to talk—“So she can tell me if something happens”—but she doesn’t want to fight for full custody lest it become an expensive legal drama or, worse, a physical fight. When Lily runs into Atlas Corrigan, a childhood friend who also came from an abusive family, she hopes their friendship can blossom into love. (For new readers, their history unfolds in heartfelt diary entries that Lily addresses to Finding Nemo star Ellen DeGeneres as she considers how Atlas was a calming presence during her turbulent childhood.) Atlas, who is single and running a restaurant, feels the same way. But even though she’s divorced, Lily isn’t exactly free. Behind Ryle’s veneer of civility are his jealousy and resentment. Lily has to plan her dates carefully to avoid a confrontation. Meanwhile, Atlas’ mother returns with shocking news. In between, Lily and Atlas steal away for romantic moments that are even sweeter for their authenticity as Lily struggles with child care, breastfeeding, and running a business while trying to find time for herself.
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-668-00122-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
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