The novel doesn’t live up to the overwhelming tension and high stakes of its protagonist’s life.
An undocumented Harvard student approaches a crossroads in 2010.
Catalina Ituralde was born in Ecuador. After her parents died in a car accident, she was raised first by her aunt and uncle in Ecuador and then by her grandparents in Queens, New York. Neither she nor her grandparents have papers to live in the United States. The story follows Catalina as she completes her final year at Harvard, a stressful time for even the most privileged young people but doubly so for a woman who must tend to her aging grandparents while trying to write her senior thesis and determine what she’s going to do after graduation considering she can’t work legally in the country that’s her home. Her life hangs in the balance at a time when the fate of the Dreamers is being used as a political football. This is the author’s first novel, following The Undocumented Americans (2020), a nonfiction book that combined personal narrative with sensitive reporting to capture the stories of undocumented immigrants. Cornejo Villavicencio is herself one of the first undocumented students to have graduated from Harvard. But this novel doesn’t quite live up to the character of Catalina; her name is a fitting title for the book as little else holds it together. Catalina sort of has friends; sort of starts a romantic relationship; sort of cares about her classes, her work-study appointment at a museum on campus, and her thesis; sort of tries to tackle the daunting challenges she and her grandparents face. All of this is understandable: Anyone’s mental health and capacity to manage day-to-day life would buckle under this tremendous existential strain. But while astute, Cornejo Villavicencio’s commentary on the hypocrisy of liberalism and academia aren’t enough to carry a story that relies on coincidence, meanders, and stalls.
The novel doesn’t live up to the overwhelming tension and high stakes of its protagonist’s life.Pub Date: July 23, 2024
ISBN: 9780593449097
Page Count: 224
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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