by Joel Levinson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 10, 2012
A gripping fictional study of a nation caught in chaos.
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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
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by Barbara Kingsolver ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 18, 2022
An angry, powerful book seething with love and outrage for a community too often stereotyped or ignored.
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New York Times Bestseller
Pulitzer Prize Winner
Inspired by David Copperfield, Kingsolver crafts a 21st-century coming-of-age story set in America’s hard-pressed rural South.
It’s not necessary to have read Dickens’ famous novel to appreciate Kingsolver’s absorbing tale, but those who have will savor the tough-minded changes she rings on his Victorian sentimentality while affirming his stinging critique of a heartless society. Our soon-to-be orphaned narrator’s mother is a substance-abusing teenage single mom who checks out via OD on his 11th birthday, and Demon’s cynical, wised-up voice is light-years removed from David Copperfield’s earnest tone. Yet readers also see the yearning for love and wells of compassion hidden beneath his self-protective exterior. Like pretty much everyone else in Lee County, Virginia, hollowed out economically by the coal and tobacco industries, he sees himself as someone with no prospects and little worth. One of Kingsolver’s major themes, hit a little too insistently, is the contempt felt by participants in the modern capitalist economy for those rooted in older ways of life. More nuanced and emotionally engaging is Demon’s fierce attachment to his home ground, a place where he is known and supported, tested to the breaking point as the opiate epidemic engulfs it. Kingsolver’s ferocious indictment of the pharmaceutical industry, angrily stated by a local girl who has become a nurse, is in the best Dickensian tradition, and Demon gives a harrowing account of his descent into addiction with his beloved Dori (as naïve as Dickens’ Dora in her own screwed-up way). Does knowledge offer a way out of this sinkhole? A committed teacher tries to enlighten Demon’s seventh grade class about how the resource-rich countryside was pillaged and abandoned, but Kingsolver doesn’t air-brush his students’ dismissal of this history or the prejudice encountered by this African American outsider and his White wife. She is an art teacher who guides Demon toward self-expression, just as his friend Tommy provokes his dawning understanding of how their world has been shaped by outside forces and what he might be able to do about it.
An angry, powerful book seething with love and outrage for a community too often stereotyped or ignored.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-325-1922
Page Count: 560
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 13, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022
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by Colleen Hoover ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 18, 2022
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
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New York Times Bestseller
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
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