A thoughtful novel that’s full of surprising relationship twists.
Debut novelist Rogers relates the life story of a spiritual Canadian woman named Anna as she struggles with relationships with men throughout her life.
The story starts many years into Anna’s marriage to Grant, with whom she’s clearly close despite some contentiousness in their relationship. In the past, Anna has fallen for boyfriends who turned out to be emotionally unavailable or unwilling to commit. In-depth flashbacks reveal that her own mother, Rosaline, settled for a man who made her miserable with his infidelity but also provided for her. After the birth of Anna’s third baby, she has a near-death experience and chooses to come back “for Grant,” feeling that “There was just enough goodness in their marriage to keep them together.” The experience also reinforces the woman’s Christian faith, which becomes intensely significant to her during moments of crisis. She forms a bond with her therapist, a man named Dr. Ess, whom she first got to know in college, and he helps her try to uncover her life’s purpose. The story follows her as she finds a kind of peace with her husband without trying to change him, writes her own story, and finds new friendships. The story takes many unexpected turns, offering Anna romantic relationships that seem sure to be “the one” but do not ultimately turn out to be. A great strength of the novel is its characterization of marriage, which is unexpected but realistic—and not the happily-ever-after that one might expect from a romantic story. The descriptions of small details of parties that Anna attends or of meaningful moments with her roommates or children are engaging. Anna’s deep attachment to Dr. Ess also comes through beautifully. However, some spans of time are offhandedly covered with phrases such as “She was seeing Grant regularly.” Overall, though, the author effectively presents Anna’s life as a series of both good and poor decisions, which makes her story highly relatable.
A thoughtful novel that’s full of surprising relationship twists.Pub Date: May 21, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64367-533-6
Page Count: 338
Publisher: Urlink Print & Media, LLC
Review Posted Online: Dec. 10, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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