A late coming-of-age story with a far-fetched plot.
A bookish young woman must make decisions about her future in this novel set in Ireland.
Kenney’s debut begins with a prologue. We see the series of tragedies that has left a 2-year-old and her uncle alone at the Leeside Pub. By Chapter 1, Siobhan is in her late 20s, still living with her Uncle Kee, and now working at the Leeside. Siobhan and her uncle have a close relationship and share a passion for Irish folklore and poetry, but Siobhan is otherwise withdrawn. She serves meat pies and drinks to the regulars and spends her free time writing poems that she does not share with anyone. It quickly becomes clear that literature is nearly all she has known of life. When Tim Ferris, an American professor of Irish studies, arrives at the pub, he ushers in a wave of brand-new experiences. Siobhan’s extreme naiveté makes her a mystery even to herself. Through the course of the novel, she feels emotions like excitement and grief as if for the first time. Her small stature is frequently emphasized, and her one close friend wonders aloud if she may be a fairy from the myths she loves so much. But, despite the improbable confluence of circumstances, the novel stays grounded in reality. Siobhan learns the truth of the past her uncle has kept from her and experiences the pain of love and loss. She seems at least somewhat aware of her odd trajectory into adulthood, writing at one point, “I’m not sure if growing up all at once at 27 is easier or harder than doing it bit by bit.” The other characters in Siobhan’s life are rendered with a similar flatness that makes them identifiable and, at times, charming but still unrealistic.
A late coming-of-age story with a far-fetched plot.Pub Date: June 20, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-54239-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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