In Erlick’s sequel to The Rebel Within (2013), tensions mount even higher when a young girl and boy begin an illicit relationship in a female-ruled society.
Followers of the series will be more than happy to find Annabelle Scott just as feisty and zealous as she was when last they saw her. Before she’s sent on a high-priority mission to capture a boy dangerous to their female-dominated, sexist society, she learns in a surprise twist that she’s to be part of an arranged marriage with Thane Edwards in order for the region of Tenn-tucky to make an alliance with the Outland, Thane’s people. Disgusted by this, Annabelle goes on her mission along with her beloved sister, Janine, and her former nemesis, Dara. Everything takes a turn for the worse when Janine is captured by the Rangers, a brutal, hostile male force in the Outland. The Rangers leave Annabelle with no choice but to take off her mech suit, thus losing nearly all her power. She wakes up on Thane Edwards’ estate and narrowly escapes before finding refuge with Geo, her adopted mother’s biological son who’s also a freedom fighter against both the Rangers and Tenn-tucky’s sexist, militaristic rule. After Geo loses his father to the Rangers, he and Annabelle hesitantly come to trust and rely on each other, as Annabelle desperately searches for her sister and Geo wishes to avenge his father’s death. They come to realize that much more holds them together than they initially thought. Like its prequel, this engrossing YA novel keeps readers on their toes. In this volume, the magnetic love between Annabelle and Geo is especially intriguing. Both raised in a society where the other sex is not to be trusted, they’re initially surprised and somewhat horrified to find how attracted to one another they are. Although, as a whole, the novel reads well with a great sense of pace and excitement, in a few instances the plot points and emotions can be overstated. For example, Annabelle’s concerns—“She hoped [Geo] hadn’t misled her. She didn’t think so; he acted too sweet and smitten” —almost defuse the sparks between them. Rather than diving into both Annabelle’s and Geo’s perspectives, a bit more emotional mystery would have made the novel even stronger.
An action-packed love story with even more twists and turns than its prequel.Pub Date: June 12, 2013
ISBN: 978-0988996830
Page Count: 294
Publisher: Finlee Augare Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
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Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
Categories: GENERAL FICTION
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
Categories: GENERAL FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP
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