An affecting novel of oppression and liberation.
In Dempster’s novel, a young Syrian woman and her family feel the oppression of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, and when war erupts, it sends their lives into further turmoil.
Eighteen-year-old Layal Wassef and her mother, Nooda; her brother, Tarek; and her father, Jorem, live in Raqqa, Syria, in the early 2010s. Layal is preparing to leave to attend university in England, and Tarek is preparing to study in Jordan. But one night, soldiers come looking for Tarek while he’s at a meeting of the Free Syrian Army, a rebel group. When they can’t find him, they arrest Jorem, and the family’s lives are thrown into chaos. Soon, the rebels take Raqqa, but eventually, the authoritarian Islamic State group takes over. Layal and her journalist mother lose their independence under strict new laws, and they witness horrors when someone is accused of going against the caliphate. Layal endures traumas and dreams of escape, but she’s unsure of how to get out of the heavily guarded city. After a tragedy, the mother and daughter must decide whether to risk death while escaping or to face a likely demise at home. Dempster’s story is fast-paced and brings the gruesome realities of war to life. The author notes that she lived in Iran as a teenager and that she’s since traveled extensively throughout the Middle East, and her fictional tale has an authoritative feel. Many readers will gain a better understanding of the different groups involved in the conflict and what it was like to be a woman under oppressive regimes. The book is a delicate, well-judged balance of dialogue and description as it presents the points of view of both Layal and Nooda. It’s an often chilling and eye-opening work that should be widely read, especially by citizens of countries involved in the Syrian Civil War.
An affecting novel of oppression and liberation.Pub Date: Feb. 10, 2025
ISBN: 9798310256958
Page Count: 281
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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