A fun read but one that’s rough around the edges.
In Ewers’ (EVO Uprising, 2015) novel, a woman is stronger than steel, can heal almost instantly, and can leap tall buildings in a single bound, but she’s not sure if she’s a superhero.
The last four years of Sophia Dennison’s life have been hell. After she’s convicted of the murder of her husband, Robert, a former Marine and Iraq War veteran, she’s sentenced to death. She spends four years in prison before she’s executed by lethal injection. However, things don’t go according to plan: not only does Sophia come back to life, she comes back taller and stronger than she was before. Every time she’s hit by a bullet, she becomes more impervious to harm. After she breaks out of prison, FBI agent Mark Armitage is assigned to find out what happened and track Sophia down, but he soon finds himself stymied by a mysterious team of investigators—“Men in Black” who are also working for the government. Ewers alternates scenes of Mark’s angry puzzlement with those of Sophia’s righteous rage as she tries to find out who did this to her and why, as well as who really killed her husband. This makes for a fast-paced novel that sweeps readers along. Although many of Sophia’s superpowers may seem familiar to comic-book fans, Ewers takes enough care with the worldbuilding that it all feels relatively fresh. The author can certainly write a thrilling action scene and injects just the right amount of self-awareness into this superhero narrative (“Glasses pulled the outfit together; she figured if it worked in the comic books, it would work for her”). The only stumbling blocks are the novel’s many grammatical errors, which too frequently bring the flow of the story to a grinding halt: “Before he can finish his sentence, the ground exploded behind him.” Readers may find it very difficult to ignore them, but the story itself remains enjoyable.
A fun read but one that’s rough around the edges.Pub Date: July 18, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-615-83669-0
Page Count: 378
Publisher: Evo Universe
Review Posted Online: Nov. 24, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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