Well-researched but overstuffed.
In Feiss’ (The Formula, 2011, etc.) new novel, a cadet at the prestigious U.S. Air Force Academy dies under mysterious circumstances.
The Air Force Academy is an institution that takes the best of the best, then beats them down and builds them up until they’re something even better. But not everyone can make it through this grueling test of mental and physical strength. When Nick Argento’s battered body turns up one morning in the snow a few stories below his dormitory window, everyone agrees that he wouldn’t have committed suicide and no one would have murdered him. So how did Argento die? Uncovering that mystery is the job assigned to Zach Fields and Mindy Reynolds, veterans of the nearby El Paso Sheriff’s Department. The academy’s commitment to an ironclad code of honor makes it nearly impossible to get straight answers about Argento from anyone, which is further complicated by the fact that the cadet’s father is an ambitious tea party senator. Thanks to the unpublished memoirs of a cadet from the 1960s, Zach discovers that the honor code has been a source of great controversy for decades, and he’ll have to break through the ranks of cadets and officers to find someone truly honorable, who can finally tell him what happened to Argento. The novel offers a great behind-the-scenes view of the academy, its rituals and training regimen. Unfortunately, a lot of time is spent on less interesting minutiae, such as the workout habits of secondary characters or back stories for ancillary characters like Brig. Gen. Leo Barrows, who doesn’t seem to deserve so much attention. Weaving in the memoirs of a 1960s cadet proves to be an intriguing narrative choice, but its voice and perspective are barely differentiated from the rest of the text, making each section feel less authentic. Though the dialogue can be wooden—characters insist on frequently referring to each other by name midconversation—the chapters in which Zach and Mindy actively engage in trying to solve the mystery of Argento’s death are especially enjoyable. Occasionally, however, a few too many plotlines—multiple romantic interests and a secondary shooting outside the academy, to name just two—slow down the action.
Well-researched but overstuffed.Pub Date: May 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-1481968355
Page Count: 326
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.
The former iCarly star reflects on her difficult childhood.
In her debut memoir, titled after her 2020 one-woman show, singer and actor McCurdy (b. 1992) reveals the raw details of what she describes as years of emotional abuse at the hands of her demanding, emotionally unstable stage mom, Debra. Born in Los Angeles, the author, along with three older brothers, grew up in a home controlled by her mother. When McCurdy was 3, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Though she initially survived, the disease’s recurrence would ultimately take her life when the author was 21. McCurdy candidly reconstructs those in-between years, showing how “my mom emotionally, mentally, and physically abused me in ways that will forever impact me.” Insistent on molding her only daughter into “Mommy’s little actress,” Debra shuffled her to auditions beginning at age 6. As she matured and starting booking acting gigs, McCurdy remained “desperate to impress Mom,” while Debra became increasingly obsessive about her daughter’s physical appearance. She tinted her daughter’s eyelashes, whitened her teeth, enforced a tightly monitored regimen of “calorie restriction,” and performed regular genital exams on her as a teenager. Eventually, the author grew understandably resentful and tried to distance herself from her mother. As a young celebrity, however, McCurdy became vulnerable to eating disorders, alcohol addiction, self-loathing, and unstable relationships. Throughout the book, she honestly portrays Debra’s cruel perfectionist personality and abusive behavior patterns, showing a woman who could get enraged by everything from crooked eyeliner to spilled milk. At the same time, McCurdy exhibits compassion for her deeply flawed mother. Late in the book, she shares a crushing secret her father revealed to her as an adult. While McCurdy didn’t emerge from her childhood unscathed, she’s managed to spin her harrowing experience into a sold-out stage act and achieve a form of catharsis that puts her mind, body, and acting career at peace.
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-982185-82-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”
The powerful story of a father’s past and a son’s future.
Atlantic senior writer Coates (The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood, 2008) offers this eloquent memoir as a letter to his teenage son, bearing witness to his own experiences and conveying passionate hopes for his son’s life. “I am wounded,” he writes. “I am marked by old codes, which shielded me in one world and then chained me in the next.” Coates grew up in the tough neighborhood of West Baltimore, beaten into obedience by his father. “I was a capable boy, intelligent and well-liked,” he remembers, “but powerfully afraid.” His life changed dramatically at Howard University, where his father taught and from which several siblings graduated. Howard, he writes, “had always been one of the most critical gathering posts for black people.” He calls it The Mecca, and its faculty and his fellow students expanded his horizons, helping him to understand “that the black world was its own thing, more than a photo-negative of the people who believe they are white.” Coates refers repeatedly to whites’ insistence on their exclusive racial identity; he realizes now “that nothing so essentialist as race” divides people, but rather “the actual injury done by people intent on naming us, intent on believing that what they have named matters more than anything we could ever actually do.” After he married, the author’s world widened again in New York, and later in Paris, where he finally felt extricated from white America’s exploitative, consumerist dreams. He came to understand that “race” does not fully explain “the breach between the world and me,” yet race exerts a crucial force, and young blacks like his son are vulnerable and endangered by “majoritarian bandits.” Coates desperately wants his son to be able to live “apart from fear—even apart from me.”
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”Pub Date: July 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9354-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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