Falls short of a magnum opus but with enough lovely notes to make it worth a look.
A young woman who can change her skin color searches for belonging and freedom from a difficult home life through music.
“My mother could change the color of her skin”: Gabrielle, the narrator, has inherited this gift, which she calls “passing.” Gabrielle is about to graduate from high school in Florida as the novel opens, and though her color-changing has been largely out of her control, she’s managed to keep her condition unnoticed by everyone but her parents. Her father, a Black lawyer with aspirations to be the perfect Republican, prefers that both Gabrielle and her mother (who is Black and Indigenous) pass as White when he gets home from work, to match their house’s all-white interior. “There were no dark things allowed in our home—except for whiskey, and him,” Gabrielle tells us. When Gabrielle’s father decides she should be pre-med at the University of Florida—“It's very competitive,” a campus tour guide tells them. “But it's a great program”—he demands she take a year off after high school to work on her extracurricular activities, giving her a better shot at admission. She begins taking piano lessons from Dominique, a young Jamaican woman whose brightly colored home and vibrant family life are everything Gabrielle wishes her own could be. Organized into parts corresponding to movements in Mahler’s Symphony No. 3, Neal’s narrative takes us through Gabrielle’s struggle to understand who she truly is and what she wants at the same time that her family irrevocably shatters. Like Gabrielle herself, though, the novel never quite settles on how to present itself, and many questions of narrative logic—characters’ motivations and histories, how Gabrielle’s passing works—go unanswered.
Falls short of a magnum opus but with enough lovely notes to make it worth a look.Pub Date: May 23, 2023
ISBN: 9781646221196
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Catapult
Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
A wistfully nostalgic look at endings, beginnings, and loving the people who will always have your back.
Exes pretend they’re still together for the sake of their friends on their annual summer vacation.
Wyn Connor and Harriet Kilpatrick were the perfect couple—until Wyn dumped Harriet for reasons she still doesn’t fully understand. They’ve been part of the same boisterous friend group since college, and they know that their breakup will devastate the others and make things more than a little awkward. So they keep it a secret from their friends and families—in fact, Harriet barely even admits it to herself, focusing instead on her grueling hours as a surgical resident. She’s ready for a vacation at her happy place—the Maine cottage she and her friends visit every summer. But (surprise!) Wyn is there too, and he and Harriet have to share a (very romantic) room and a bed. Telling the truth about their breakup is out of the question, because the cottage is up for sale, and this is the group’s last hurrah. Determined to make sure everyone has the perfect last trip, Harriet and Wyn resolve to fake their relationship for the week. The problem with this plan, of course, is that Harriet still has major feelings for Wyn—feelings that only get stronger as they pretend to be blissfully in love. As always, Henry’s dialogue is sparkling and the banter between characters is snappy and hilarious. Wyn and Harriet’s relationship, shown both in the past and the present, feels achingly real. Their breakup, as well as their complicated relationships with their own families, adds a twinge of melancholy, as do the relatable growing pains of a group of friends whose lives are taking them in different directions.
A wistfully nostalgic look at endings, beginnings, and loving the people who will always have your back.Pub Date: April 25, 2023
ISBN: 9780593441275
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
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
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