A gripping fictional study of a nation caught in chaos.
This chilling novel, set during the Bosnian War, drives home the horrors of armed conflict.
In this updated version of his 2012 book, Levinson creates a likable titular character in Jusuf Pasalic, a college-aged Muslim man in Bosnia. Jusuf’s life takes a turn for the worse in the spring of 1992 when a Serbian soldier yanks him from his home in Kljuc. The Serbian militia rounds up all the other Muslim men in town, as well, and transports them to a detention camp. Later, Jusuf escapes by hiding in the woods. His goal is to return home to find his mother, Ismeta, but he instead wanders for weeks, finally landing in Bihac. A woman named Azra takes pity on him and brings him home so he can clean up and rest. Jusuf remains with her and her father, Suad, and eventually, Jusuf and Azra fall in love. But Jusuf, who always hated hunting, even though he’s a crack shot, feels the need to join the Muslims fighting the war. His time in combat is mostly tedium until the day that his best friend, Sasha, who’s serving with the Serbs, brings Ismeta to the front so that she and Jusuf could see each other—but this has unintended results. Levinson manages a notable feat with this volume, as readers will feel the incredibly slow passage of time as both sides of the ethnic conflict wait for a United Nations intervention that comes far too late. He’s also to be commended for his research, as his attention to detail gives immediacy to a conflict with which many Americans may be unfamiliar. Levinson grimly highlights the cruelty of wartime, and he effectively uses Jusuf to illustrate it; the kindly youth is simply trying to find his path when war tears his life apart and nearly breaks him. As such, readers who may be seeking an upbeat resolution should look elsewhere.
A gripping fictional study of a nation caught in chaos.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4759-3900-2
Page Count: 280
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Lush, gorgeous, precise language and propulsive plotting sweep readers into a story as intelligent as it is atmospheric.
In 16th-century Madrid, a crypto-Jew with a talent for casting spells tries to steer clear of the Inquisition.
Luzia Cotado, a scullion and an orphan, has secrets to keep: “It was a game she and her mother had played, saying one thing and thinking another, the bits and pieces of Hebrew handed down like chipped plates.” Also handed down are “refranes”—proverbs—in “not quite Spanish, just as Luzia was not quite Spanish.” When Luzia sings the refranes, they take on power. “Aboltar cazal, aboltar mazal” (“A change of scene, a change of fortune”) can mend a torn gown or turn burnt bread into a perfect loaf; “Quien no risica, no rosica” (“Whoever doesn’t laugh, doesn’t bloom”) can summon a riot of foliage in the depths of winter. The Inquisition hangs over the story like Chekhov’s famous gun on the wall. When Luzia’s employer catches her using magic, the ambitions of both mistress and servant catapult her into fame and danger. A new, even more ambitious patron instructs his supernatural servant, Guillén Santángel, to train Luzia for a magical contest. Santángel, not Luzia, is the familiar of the title; he has been tricked into trading his freedom and luck to his master’s family in exchange for something he no longer craves but can’t give up. The novel comes up against an issue common in fantasy fiction: Why don’t the characters just use their magic to solve all their problems? Bardugo has clearly given it some thought, but her solutions aren’t quite convincing, especially toward the end of the book. These small faults would be harder to forgive if she weren’t such a beautiful writer. Part fairy tale, part political thriller, part romance, the novel unfolds like a winter tree bursting into unnatural bloom in response to one of Luzia’s refranes, as she and Santángel learn about power, trust, betrayal, and love.
Lush, gorgeous, precise language and propulsive plotting sweep readers into a story as intelligent as it is atmospheric.Pub Date: April 9, 2024
ISBN: 9781250884251
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
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