No fireworks here, but everyday struggles rendered into a deeply poignant story.
A young woman spends 10 months working as a nanny for a wealthy Tribeca family in Wu’s quietly impressive coming-into-adulthood novel.
While working as a waitress in Brooklyn, 24-year-old Willa Chen jumps at an offer to become a nanny for Nathalie and Gabe Adrien’s 9-year-old daughter, Bijou. The easy hours and live-in suite are appealing, but Willa is mostly thrilled at the prospect of being part of an average American family. Willa's parents divorced when she was small; her father, who'd emigrated from China at age 10, and her working-class White American mother both began new families, leaving Willa feeling extraneous. She's also experienced multiple instances of racism, whether mean-spirited or unintentional, and she's trained herself to stay emotionally reserved and inconspicuous. The Adriens, especially Nathalie, seem to embody everything Willa’s own childhood lacked, while precocious Bijou is given the parental attention Willa craved. Willa tries to embed herself into the Adriens’ world, finding their castoffs “irresistible,” catering to Bijou’s every need, considering herself and Bijou “like sisters, maybe,” even developing an ambivalent flirtation with Nathalie’s younger brother. Observing the Adrien household also prompts Willa to recall events from her own childhood with new clarity. Wu’s debut eschews many of the tropes of current fiction, particularly nanny fiction. Do not expect sexual or physical abuse, quirky characters, weird secrets, or biting tweet-ready wit; do not expect shocking plot twists or an exposé of evil parents or bosses. The Adriens are privileged New York liberals, imperfect but far from despicable; Willa’s parents made big mistakes but they loved her. And Bijou is a heartbreakingly complex child with anxieties that adults, including Willa, don’t always notice. Ultimately, expect subtle surprises as Willa’s relationships evolve in a satisfying accumulation of carefully drawn small moments that build toward her understanding, even acceptance, of both an imperfect world and herself.
No fireworks here, but everyday struggles rendered into a deeply poignant story.Pub Date: Nov. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-951142-73-5
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Tin House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2021
PERSPECTIVES
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
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
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