A young girl must harness the power of her maternal line to help her mother in this debut novel.
Angela lives for the beauty of Ukraine in a simple life with her mother, Lyuda. While Angela discovers that she can become a bird, Lyuda slips into a depression, aided by the vodka she sips at night. Her own mother is dead, Angela’s father has left them, and while Lyuda’s childhood friend Sveta is their neighbor, she has not spoken to her in years. One afternoon by the river, Angela meets the spirit of her grandmother and is tasked with bringing out the memories in Lyuda that haunt her. The ethereal realm collides with reality as Lyuda is shown a different life: one where Volodiya, Angela’s father, stays to love her and provide her with an elegant home. But something is missing from this alternative universe: there is no daughter. She aches for Sveta’s daughter, Maria, to be her own, even as heartbreaking news about her own fertility is revealed. Which life is more worth living, the one without Volodiya, or the one without Angela? The spirit of her mother and daughter both will have to work hard to bring epiphany to Lyuda’s heavy heart. The scenery that Meriel’s tale inhabits is lush, with lilac bushes, golden sunshine, and delicious food. The narration switches liberally from character to character and from first person to third person, which can make it occasionally hard to follow, especially when Angela assumes her bird form. But while the magical realism of this evocative novel is sometimes-opaque, the story is never lost, grounded in Lyuda’s internal monologue and vivid memories. There are some chapters that lack nuance, such as the scenes written from Volodiya’s perspective, that of a young man burdened by his abusive father and, later, Lyuda’s pregnancy. By far, the book’s women are the most compelling characters, especially when Lyuda’s hard-earned acceptance of one of her paths is expressed in the final chapters. Readers looking for a classic tale of love and loss will be rewarded with an intoxicating world, especially if they can follow the more magical plotlines.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2016
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 271
Publisher: Granite Cloud
Review Posted Online: Aug. 8, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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