Perfectly rendered characters anchor a novel built around a fierce, flawed, and loving family.
As members of the Padilla family navigate their way through the harsh realities of life in northern New Mexico over the course of a year, they discover the depths of their faith in each other and in themselves.
The Padillas are an old family from the fading village of Las Penas, but now they've dwindled to four people: the matriarch, Yolanda; her two adult children, Amadeo and Valerie; and her elderly Tío Tíve, head of the village’s morada, an informal religious meeting house, where he has chosen Amadeo for the role of Jesus in the upcoming Good Friday procession. Amadeo, unemployed and alcoholic, still lives with his mother. As the book opens, Yolanda is on vacation in Las Vegas; Amadeo's estranged teenage daughter, Angel, shows up on his doorstep, pregnant, after having had a fight with her mother, and Amadeo reluctantly takes her in. Angel, who is in a school for teenage mothers, idolizes her teacher, Brianna, a young woman from Oregon. Meanwhile, in Las Vegas, Yolanda goes to the emergency room and receives a devastating diagnosis, sending her back home to her children and grandchildren, determined to find a way to fix the crumbling foundations of their relationships. However, the birth of Angel’s son and Amadeo’s lifelong habit of financial and emotional dependence on his mother blind them to Yolanda’s rapidly declining health. When Brianna instigates a secret sexual relationship with Amadeo, they are each guilty of being selfish and careless with Angel’s life, but it is Brianna who causes a series of reverberating consequences for Angel and the other girls in the program while she walks away unscathed. With beautifully layered relationships and an honest yet profoundly empathetic picture of a rural community—where the families proudly trace their roots back to the Spanish conquistadors while struggling with poverty and a deadly drug epidemic—this novel is a brilliant meditation on love and redemption.
Perfectly rendered characters anchor a novel built around a fierce, flawed, and loving family.Pub Date: April 6, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-393-24283-6
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
PERSPECTIVES
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.
A love story about a life of second chances.
In Nassau, in the Bahamas, casino detective Vincent LaPorta grills Alfie Logan, who’d come up a winner three times in a row at the roulette table and walked away with $2 million. “How did you do it?” asks the detective. Alfie calmly denies cheating. You wired all the money to a Gianna Rule, LaPorta says. Why? To explain, Alfie produces a composition book with the words “For the Boss, to Be Read Upon My Death” written on the cover. Read this for answers, Alfie suggests, calling it a love story. His mother had passed along to him a strange trait: He can say “Twice!” and go back to a specific time and place to have a do-over. But it only works once for any particular moment, and then he must live with the new consequences. He can only do this for himself and can’t prevent anyone from dying. Alfie regularly uses his power—failing to impress a girl the first time, he finds out more about her, goes back in time, and presto! She likes him. The premise is of course not credible—LaPorta doesn’t buy it either—but it’s intriguing. Most people would probably love to go back and unsay something. The story’s focus is on Alfie’s love for Gianna and whether it’s requited, unrequited, or both. In any case, he’s obsessed with her. He’s a good man, though, an intelligent person with ordinary human failings and a solid moral compass. Albom writes in a warm, easy style that transports the reader to a world of second chances and what-ifs, where spirituality lies close to the surface but never intrudes on the story. Though a cynic will call it sappy, anyone who is sick to their core from the daily news will enjoy this escape from reality.
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780062406682
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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