History, science, and heart make for a read that’s both cozy and complex.
A debut environmental novel explores struggles both past and distressingly present.
Jess Jensen and Piah have a lot in common. They’ve both grown up on the banks of the Nesika River and lost younger sisters to its current. Nevertheless, as they press on into adulthood—Piah into motherhood and Jess into a career in field biology—they continue to feel a connection to the river. And when it’s threatened, they find a link between them in dreams and visions despite their insurmountable differences—Piah lived 200 years before Jess, a Molalla tribeswoman rather than a modern Oregonian. As Piah tries to interpret her premonitions of disaster and the reality of sickness besetting her village, Jess fights to get a dam removed from the river, knowing that the structure’s effect on the ecosystem will be disastrous but unable to get anyone to listen. Jess finds herself with fewer and fewer allies, as her boyfriend, Jeff, works for the power company and seems more committed to compromise than to what’s best for the ecology, and her friend Suzie abuses her trust with radical environmentalists. As time passes for Jess and Piah, their battles continue to rage, taking a horrific toll. It’s only when they bond and seek out the lessons they have to teach each other that peace—and maybe victory—may come within their grasps. The story and characters here are strong; Reddick fleshes out both protagonists’ worlds with thought and compassion. In the present day in particular, chapters from Jeff’s and Jess’ mothers’ perspectives lend depth to the shifting conflicts. It’s also noteworthy that, for a novel so grounded in the realities of science and conservation, Piah’s Molalla faith is treated with genuine respect and reverence. The only problem is that the prose can be somewhat stilted at times: “One of her first projects had been to hire a professional photographer to take pictures of the Nesika, both above and below the dams. She put the photos together in a beautiful book called The River’s Cry that she hoped would help people better understand the need to completely restore the spawning grounds above the Green Springs dam.” While it’s a shame that these moments will sometimes pull readers out of the book, the majority of the description, narration, and dialogue is smooth and evocative.
History, science, and heart make for a read that’s both cozy and complex.Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-63152-483-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: She Writes Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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