An often engaging and readable account of UFO lore, but one that won’t convince skeptics.
In their debut collaboration, UFO enthusiasts Heckenlively and Mazzola offer an account of aliens and government coverups.
The author’s story begins in the same place it ends—during U.S. congressional hearings on unidentified flying objects (aka unidentified arial phenomena) in July 2023. At these hearings, former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer David Grusch made headlines when he testified that alien corpses existed on U.S. military bases and that this state of affairs was common knowledge in the intelligence community. In the remainder of the book, the authors discuss a highly detailed series of scenarios that will be familiar to readers who know about the standard UFO narrative: that alien spacecraft have crash-landed on Earth many times, that other aliens continue to visit the planet, and that their existence is known to a secret cabal of world leaders (the “deep state” of the book’s subtitle) who’ve suppressed that knowledge for decades while “reverse-engineering” alien technology from crash sites. They review a number of familiar events, including the alleged alien-spaceship crash in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947, and the claimed alien abduction of Betty and Barney Hill in New Hampshire in 1961, among others. Throughout, they frequently reference other UFO enthusiasts, such as Steven Greer (who hosts a podcast with Mazzola). They also ask broader questions related to UFO theories, such as “would the reality of alien intervention in human development destroy our faith in both God and science?”
Over the course of 300 pages, Heckenlively and Mazzola write with energy and intelligence, and it makes for a work that newcomers to the topic may find engaging. They even periodically broaden the conversation to epistemic dimensions: “Does it genuinely matter whether one is a skeptic or a believer in UFOs?” they ask at one point. “What seems clear to both sides is that something important is being kept from us.” In general, the work is likely to appeal most to fellow UFO aficionados who may already agree with many of its assertions. However, the book presents theories without convincing evidence. For example, it tells of Peruvian mummies “with three toes and three fingers, who appear to be genetic hybrids using the DNA of humans, chimpanzees, and something else,” but leaps to a conclusion, without proof, that they must have genetically engineered by aliens. At another point, the book states that President Bill Clinton was “consistently denied access” to intelligence agency information about UFOs, but the president never said this, which the authors note earlier on: “Perhaps we’re reading between the lines but Clinton appears to be saying that nobody definitively told him there were no alien bodies or technology in our possession.” The authors’ theories about humanity’s past also seem based on assumptions, as when they ask, “When we look at the horrors of human history, might we blame at least some of it on the aliens—who, after giving us intelligence, quickly took us into bondage and slavery?”
An often engaging and readable account of UFO lore, but one that won’t convince skeptics.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9798895651186
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Post Hill Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
For fans only.
The hoodie-and-shorts-clad Pennsylvania senator blends the political and personal, and often not nicely.
Fetterman’s memoir addresses three major themes. The first—and the one he leads with—is depression and mental illness, which, combined with a stroke and heart trouble, brought him to a standstill and led him to contemplate suicide. The second is his rise to national-level politics from a Rust Belt town; as he writes, he’s carved a path as a contentious player with a populist streak and a dislike for elites. There are affecting moments in his personal reminiscences, especially when he writes of the lives of his working-class neighbors in impoverished southwestern Pennsylvania, its once-prosperous Monongahela River Valley “the most heartbreaking drive in the United States.” It’s the third element that’s problematic, and that’s his in-the-trenches account of daily politics. One frequent complaint is the media, as when he writes of one incident, “I am not the first public figure to get fucked by a reporter, and I won’t be the last. What was eye-opening was the window it gave into how people with disabilities navigate a world that doesn’t give a shit.” He reserves special disdain for his Senate race opponent Mehmet Oz, about whom he wonders, “If I had run against any other candidate…would I have lost? He got beaten by a guy recovering from a stroke.” Perhaps so, and Democratic stalwarts will likely be dismayed at his apparent warmish feelings for Donald Trump and dislike of his own party’s “performative protests.” If Fetterman’s book convinces a troubled soul to seek help, it will have done some good, but it’s hard to imagine that it will make much of an impression in the self-help literature. One wonders, meanwhile, at sentiments such as this: “If men are forced to choose between picking their party or keeping their balls, most men are going to choose their balls.”
For fans only.Pub Date: Nov. 11, 2025
ISBN: 9780593799826
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
A dauntless, moving account of a kidnapping and the horrors that followed.
Enduring the unthinkable.
This memoir—the first by an Israeli taken captive by Hamas on October 7, 2023—chronicles the 491 days the author was held in Gaza. Confined to tunnels beneath war-ravaged streets, Sharabi was beaten, humiliated, and underfed. When he was finally released in February, he learned that Hamas had murdered his wife and two daughters. In the face of scarcely imaginable loss, Sharabi has crafted a potent record of his will to survive. The author’s ordeal began when Hamas fighters dragged him from his home, in a kibbutz near Gaza. Alongside others, he was held for months at a time in filthy subterranean spaces. He catalogs sensory assaults with novelistic specificity. Iron shackles grip his ankles. Broken toilets produce an “unbearable stink,” and “tiny white worms” swarm his toothbrush. He gets one meal a day, his “belly caving inward.” Desperate for more food, he stages a fainting episode, using a shaving razor to “slice a deep gash into my eyebrow.” Captors share their sweets while celebrating an Iranian missile attack on Israel. He and other hostages sneak fleeting pleasures, finding and downing an orange soda before a guard can seize it. Several times, Sharabi—51 when he was kidnapped—gives bracing pep talks to younger compatriots. The captives learn to control what they can, trading family stories and “lift[ing] water bottles like dumbbells.” Remarkably, there’s some levity. He and fellow hostages nickname one Hamas guard “the Triangle” because he’s shaped like a SpongeBob SquarePants character. The book’s closing scenes, in which Sharabi tries to console other hostages’ families while learning the worst about his own, are heartbreaking. His captors “are still human beings,” writes Sharabi, bravely modeling the forbearance that our leaders often lack.
A dauntless, moving account of a kidnapping and the horrors that followed.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780063489790
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Harper Influence/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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