Exceptional in theory but too busy to fully deliver.
A sequel to Hollow Kingdom (2019) in which clever talking crow S.T. must raise Dee, the last human on Earth, to keep the Changed Ones from destroying all remaining nature.
Delightful, raucous, and bighearted S.T. has pecked off more than he can chew when it comes to raising the MoFo (human) child, Dee. Before her mother succumbed to the virus killing and changing all humankind, she left Dee in the care of the trees and birds of the Alaskan tundra. As Dee becomes a teenager, she learns to speak the languages of the natural world, much to S.T.’s chagrin. He wants her to imitate the MoFos he loved in the before-times, but Dee only wants to be a crow, a bee, a fish, or a musk ox. When they butt heads, Dee’s human emotions often end in angry, dangerous outbursts or the deep sorrow of depression. All S.T. wants is to keep Dee safe from predators, both natural and the decidedly unnatural Changed Ones—former humans, ravaged by the virus and quickly evolving into grotesque superpredators. All Dee wants is to throw herself into adventure and protect the animals she loves dearly but can never quite become. Then, when the creatures of the ocean and their prophet Onida call Dee from the tundra to Seattle, the heart of the outbreak, to stop the Changed Ones from further upsetting the natural order, S.T. ignores his animal friends. He tries to hide Dee away and force her to be something she isn’t. But Dee has other ideas, and together they are swept up by orcas and taken to S.T.’s old home. There, crows, tigers, owls, house cats, elephants, and all manner of creature must decide if Dee is a savior worth trusting or a danger that will lead them to their end. She is a human, after all. Like its predecessor, this is a genre-bending, humorous twist on the zombie apocalypse from a bird’s-eye view, but it, too, is bogged down by tedious exposition and too many morality tales shoehorned into one narrative. The addition of violence against women as a mostly underdeveloped plot device is particularly worth noting for sensitive readers. Repetitive wordplay, exhaustive lists, and convenient scenarios fight with brilliant humor, clever characters, and an intriguing look at the relationship between parents and the children who don’t conform to their expectations.
Exceptional in theory but too busy to fully deliver.Pub Date: Aug. 24, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5387-3524-4
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
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
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