Dry but readable, Sun’s book bridges the gap between Chinese tradition and an increasingly globalized West.
In her first novel, Sun explores a cross-cultural love affair in the world of international business.
In many ways, Lu and Will could not be more different: Lu grew up in China, barely survived the Cultural Revolution, and fled to the United States as soon as possible. The past haunts Lu wherever she goes, especially family members, both living and dead. In contrast, Will is a Navy veteran, a surfer, and the easygoing CEO of a successful tech company. But when a corporate merger throws them together, Lu and Will become star-crossed lovers, and their delicate business dealings become all the more complex. Sun writes competently about Wall Street culture, and she creates a convincing cast of blustery boardroom characters. But the book’s most engaging chapters limn Lu’s difficult back story. When she returns to China after 30 years in the U.S., Lu pieces together a painful tale of politics, parentage, and betrayal. Meanwhile, she barely recognizes her homeland through its choking smog and development. Sun is a very slow storyteller, and the book takes a long time to find purchase. The prose is a mix of deep exposition, corporate-speak, and logistical data. When Will chides his sister for enjoying happy hour too much, she woodenly replies: “Stop being so controlling. I am forty-seven years old and having a drink or two with my brother. What kind of trouble can I get into? If you are really worried about me, why don’t you also order me a salad. I haven’t eaten anything since this morning.” In place of subtext, Sun frames her novel with a Chinese folk tale about a fairy who falls in love with a general. When the general proves cruel, the fairy allows him to die and opts to live alone on the moon. This tale is told twice in the first 10 pages, and it serves as a relentless metaphor for Lu’s displacement.
Dry but readable, Sun’s book bridges the gap between Chinese tradition and an increasingly globalized West.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4917-7769-5
Page Count: 284
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Dec. 8, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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