Reid is a genius of mimicry and social observation.
A very thin wall in a college dorm causes complications for eavesdroppers on both sides.
Reid follows her debut, Such a Fun Age (2020), with another sharp, edgy social novel, this time set at the University of Arkansas. Primary among the large cast are Agatha, a 38-year-old gay white visiting professor; Millie, a Black 24-year-old RA; and the five undergrads who live in the suite next door to her. The students include a threesome of white friends—Agatha categorizes them as “Jenna: tall. Casey: southern. Tyler: mean” when she interviews them for a book she’s working on—and two loners: Peyton (who is Black) and the white Kennedy, who’s been through a terrible experience just before arriving at college. Kennedy can hear everything the RAs say when they meet up in Millie’s room, and she has so little going on in her own life that she listens in quite a bit. Meanwhile, everything that’s said in the suites is heard loud and clear in Millie’s room. So when Agatha becomes fascinated with the girls after that initial interview, particularly with the way they talk and their relationships to money, she starts paying Millie (!) to let her come in and eavesdrop on them once a week. As an author, Reid has the very same obsessions she gives her character Agatha, and the guilty pleasure of the book is the way she nails the characters’ speech styles, Southern accents, and behavior and her unerring choice of products and other accoutrements to surround them with. “Tyler wasn’t actively cruel to Kennedy, but she definitely wasn’t all that nice. The small ‘hey’ she gave when Kennedy opened the door stung with the truce of roommate civility. Perhaps it felt more hostile in comparison to the way she greeted Peyton. She’d go ‘Oh hello, roomie,’ or ‘Pey-Pey’s home.’ And then Peyton would say, ‘Okaayyy. Hiii.’ ” Then Agatha decides to start selling these “interviews” to Teen Vogue, and Millie finds she can’t stop thinking about Agatha, and mean pranks beget even meaner ones—Ohmahlord, as Casey would say.
Reid is a genius of mimicry and social observation.Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2024
ISBN: 9780593328200
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
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 dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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