A tentative romance that’s strengthened by complex characterization.
A teenager falls into an unexpected relationship with her father’s friend in Tirado-Ryen’s novel.
Connie Baltimore is an 18-year-old in her last year of high school in Little Rock, Arkansas, when her life gets shaken up in the year 2000. Her grandmother has flown in from Jamaica to stay with the family until Connie’s graduation, and Connie’s older sister, Alison, has also moved back home following a terrible fight with her husband. In addition, her dad’s recentlywidowed, 35-year-old friend Nicholas Riley has been invited to live with them for a few months until he gets back on his feet; he hasn’t worked as a journalist since his wife’s death. Connie has never been in love, nor has she ever had a serious boyfriend, but she soon finds herself connecting with Nick and falling into a slow-burn romance that makes up much of the plot. The narrative places a lot of emphasis on the age difference between the two main characters, with both resisting the possibility of a relationship; Nick is given to phrases such as “If I was ten years younger…,” and Connie refers the idea of her having a crush on him as “perverted.” In addition, strangers mistake the couple as a father and daughter. Outside the romance plot, however, the Baltimore family comes across as complex and real, and the complicated dynamics of Connie’s relationship with her best friend, Dee Ramsey, offer a heartfelt examination of growing older and growing apart. The work succeeds as a coming-of-age story, but it’s one that never quite decides how it wants readers to perceive the main couple. Because of that, some may find it hard to connect to the romantic element of the story. Connie is a charming enough character to keep the story afloat, however.
A tentative romance that’s strengthened by complex characterization.Pub Date: July 10, 2023
ISBN: 9798989684946
Page Count: 296
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Nov. 9, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.
A high school senior pursues an affair with her teacher.
Seventeen-year-old Waldo, the narrator of McCurdy’s fiction debut, lives in Anchorage, Alaska, with her mother, though she’s long been the parent in their relationship. She heats her own frozen meals and pays the bills on time while her mom chases man after man and makes well-meaning promises she never keeps. Waldo blows her Victoria’s Secret wages on online shopping sprees and binges on junk food, inevitably crashing after the fleeting highs of her indulgences. Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher, has “thinning hair and nose pores”; he’s 40 years old and married with a child. Nevertheless—or possibly as a result?—Waldo’s attraction to him is “instant. So sudden it’s alarming. So palpable it’s confusing.” Mr. Korgy professes to want to keep their friendship aboveboard, but after a sexual encounter at the school’s winter formal that she initiates, an affair begins. Will this reckless pursuit be the one that actually satisfies Waldo, and is she as mature as she thinks she is? Waldo is a keen observer of people and provides sharp commentary on the punishing work of female beauty. Readers of McCurdy’s bestselling memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died (2022), will surely be curious about the tumultuous mother-daughter relationship, and it is one of the novel’s highlights, full of realistic pity and anger and need. (“I want to scream at her. I want her to hug me.”) Unfortunately, the prose is often unwieldy and sometimes downright cringeworthy: When Waldo tells Mr. Korgy she loves him, “The words hang in the air in that constipated way they do when you know that you shouldn’t have said them.” Waldo frequently lists emotions and adjectives in triplicate, and events that could be significant aren’t sufficiently explored or given enough space to breathe before the novel races on to the next thing.
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593723739
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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