A grandiose but uninvolving tale of embattled queer communities.
Gay people battle homophobes in modern-day San Francisco and ancient Sodom and Gomorrah in this debut fantasy thriller.
When gay programmer Arthur Stevenson joins his co-workers at San Francisco’s Tech2AI Company for a group meditation session after the 2016 presidential election, he has a strange vision of a burning town, which he identifies as the biblical city of Sodom. But contrary to the Genesis story, in which God destroyed Sodom for deviancy, Arthur’s subsequent visions portray it, Gomorrah, and the three other “cities in the plain” as utopias of peace, prosperity, abundant leisure time, and acceptance of LGBTQ lifestyles. In the visions, King Chedorlaomer of the powerful hill city of Elam teams up with homophobic patriarch Abraham to try to conquer gender-nonconforming peoples. Back in modern times, San Francisco’s residents are captivated by accounts of Arthur’s visions when a newspaper publishes them—as is John Wesley the Third, the antigay leader of the fundamentalist “Baptodist Church,” who mobilizes all his resources, including a minion in President Donald Trump’s White House and a spy at Tech2AI, to destroy Arthur, his friends, and his gay-positive message. Fortunately, Arthur’s vision quest gives him superpowers, including the ability to immobilize people, which he uses against various bad guys, including a terrorist and alt-right thugs. Kaboli’s yarn stitches together two thematically related narratives—a reworking of the Bible into a saga of enlightened libertines confronting hatred, and a reprise of it thousands of years later with contemporary politics. However, neither is very focused or gripping. Although there are assassinations, bombings, and even tongue amputations, this long series starter bogs down in a profusion of sketchy side characters and backstories, scenes of characters rehashing plot points that readers already know, and gassy ruminations: “There is a back channel within humans that can bypass default to reach free will and liberty.” Still, Kaboli does sometimes manage to poignantly evoke a particular mood: “When Sam felt overcome with the impossibility of being with Melody, he disappeared from the world into the darkness of his lonely apartment, sitting on his sofa, staring at the reflected street light on his wall for hours.”
A grandiose but uninvolving tale of embattled queer communities.Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-73268-061-6
Page Count: 500
Publisher: Simple Tales LLC
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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