A thoughtful fantasy about the lies that we tell ourselves about our identities and our choices.
A recently deceased woman reflects on her life and comes to some surprising conclusions in Morehead’s (The Best From the Cheap Seats, 2014, etc.) novel.
Joanna “Jo” Lynn Anderson Campbell is dead. To her chagrin, the widow and mother of two didn’t go straight to heaven. Instead, she’s stuck in a kind of limbo with only one other entity for company—her very chatty, sometimes-bossy Soul. At first, the self-righteous Jo is upset she hasn’t been granted immediate entry into the afterlife despite having lived a good life on Earth: “My anger seems to be focused on the faith that sustained me in life. Was all that for nothing?” she wonders in the first panicked moments after her demise. But Soul aims to show the reluctant Joanna that her life as the “perfect daughter, wife, mother, grandmother” wasn’t so perfect after all. Indeed, at first, Jo’s existence seemed blessedly humdrum—almost unbelievably so. She grew up with two loving parents in the small, Norman Rockwell–esque town of Chestertown, Maryland, in the late 1950s, married young, and had two children. But Morehead gradually and effectively complicates the narrative as Soul urges Jo to look back on her childhood, her youthful friendships, her romance with her husband, and her marriage. Slowly, Soul—who’s sometimes an impatient teacher—gets Jo to understand that her belief in her perfect life was a fantasy that allowed her to avoid difficult emotions. Occasionally, Soul gives Jo a glimpse at what others around her were doing in the past, but more often, Soul pushes Jo to confront her own uncomfortable memories. This philosophical novel starts out rather slowly, and some of its readers may find that Jo’s prickly attitude, combined with her rose-colored view of the past, will require some patience to get through. But eventually it becomes clear that this unsympathetic characterization is all part of the author’s plan. By the end of the novel, she ably shows how Soul gradually allows Jo to come to the conclusion that “Human beings are MEANT to be imperfect.”
A thoughtful fantasy about the lies that we tell ourselves about our identities and our choices.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2015
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 283
Publisher: Churchill Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 21, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of...
Hoover’s (November 9, 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.
At first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers; Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. Lily swears she’ll never end up in another abusive home, but when Ryle starts to show all the same warning signs that her mother ignored, Lily learns just how hard it is to say goodbye. When Ryle is not in the throes of a jealous rage, his redeeming qualities return, and Lily can justify his behavior: “I think we needed what happened on the stairwell to happen so that I would know his past and we’d be able to work on it together,” she tells herself. Lily marries Ryle hoping the good will outweigh the bad, and the mother-daughter dynamics evolve beautifully as Lily reflects on her childhood with fresh eyes. Diary entries fancifully addressed to TV host Ellen DeGeneres serve as flashbacks to Lily’s teenage years, when she met her first love, Atlas Corrigan, a homeless boy she found squatting in a neighbor’s house. When Atlas turns up in Boston, now a successful chef, he begs Lily to leave Ryle. Despite the better option right in front of her, an unexpected complication forces Lily to cut ties with Atlas, confront Ryle, and try to end the cycle of abuse before it’s too late. The relationships are portrayed with compassion and honesty, and the author’s note at the end that explains Hoover’s personal connection to the subject matter is a must-read.
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of the survivors.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1036-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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