Next book

Kingdom Come, CA

Awards & Accolades

Our Verdict

  • Our Verdict
  • GET IT

In this debut psychological thriller, a reclusive artist opens up to her new neighbors with life-changing consequences.
For her eighth birthday, in 1978, Ruby Wellman asked to visit the pier in Santa Monica, California. After winning prizes and riding the Ferris wheel, the family began driving home only to suffer a horrific car accident. Ruby was badly burned, and her 5-year-old brother, Abe, was killed. Today, the Wellmans barely speak to each other and pretend that Abe never existed. Ruby, now a 40-something painter, blames herself; she lives in the small town of Kingdom Come, enjoying the company of her dog, Tonto, and a few close friends. Content as a loner, Ruby is devastated to learn that a family is about to move in just around the corner into a home once owned by someone she called the Old Man. Yet when Hannah and Mischa McCord arrive—along with their 6-year-old son, Finn—Ruby warms to them. Finn is an introverted child who bonds quickly with Ruby. Soon, however, the boy finds an imaginary friend, the Wizard—who reminds everyone of Hannah’s grandfather, the Old Man. Is it coincidence at play, or does familial energy linger on the property? As Ruby and Finn grow closer, secrets kept by the McCords threaten to unravel their newly formed relationship. In her debut, Strick successfully writes with the confidence of a seasoned author, building an ambient world around Ruby’s love for the outdoors and her wariness of people. Her prose is often striking: “I fall asleep every night to the hoot of the owl in the oak near my window, to the night breezes, the silence of the stars.” Elsewhere, she wonderfully conveys the intensity of the artist at work: “I’m addicted to the zone I enter, when I click off the workings of my nattering mind.” As Ruby and Finn’s bond strengthens (represented through nightmares and surreal paintings), the narrative’s emotional layers grow increasingly complex; characters like Ruby’s mother and best friend, Charlie, achieve beautiful realization. Whether Strick’s final reveal is garish or truly shocking will be up to the reader—but it is executed masterfully.

A clear new voice offering a startling, memorable debut.

Pub Date: May 21, 2014

ISBN: 978-1496036049

Page Count: 352

Publisher: CreateSpace

Review Posted Online: Aug. 21, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2014

Categories:

Awards & Accolades

Likes

  • Readers Vote
  • 58


Our Verdict

  • Our Verdict
  • GET IT


  • Kirkus Reviews'
    Best Books Of 2015


  • Kirkus Prize
  • Kirkus Prize
    winner


  • National Book Award Finalist

Next book

A LITTLE LIFE

The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.

Awards & Accolades

Likes

  • Readers Vote
  • 58


Our Verdict

  • Our Verdict
  • GET IT


  • Kirkus Reviews'
    Best Books Of 2015


  • Kirkus Prize
  • Kirkus Prize
    winner


  • National Book Award Finalist

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

Categories:
Next book

JURASSIC PARK

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

Categories:
Close Quickview