A fast-paced and fun throwback to the heyday of the radio era.
In Wainland’s (Iron Butterfly, 2015) nostalgic thriller set in 1998, two radio disc jockeys find success in their professional lives, but their personal lives are a different story.
At Miami radio station WORR (“Only Rock and Roll”), DJ Jonny Rock (Jonathan Roeker, off-air) has been cheating on his wife for years—lately, with a cute, redheaded intern whose ambition he exploits for personal gain. Dana Drew (Dana Hill, off-air), one of a handful of female DJs in a male-dominated industry, is respected for her talent, but she’s also used as eye candy for promotional events, which she hates. Meanwhile, Larry Carter, Dana’s creepy superfan, has been losing weight, hoping to impress the radio host when he finally meets her in person. After surviving a traumatic childhood, Cody Blue Smith is finally getting his big break as a musician, but his newfound success strains his relationship with his band mates and his girlfriend. The radio station brings all these characters together and then tears them apart. The overarching story captures the zeitgeist of the late 1990s, as the DJs, rock stars, and listeners reveal the glamorous, complicated, and dangerous sides of the music industry in alternating narratives. Wainland’s characters are flawed, funny, and self-aware, brought to life with sharp prose: “he was sporting the hair style an angry child with a yellow crayon would give a stick figure.” The historical details also ring true: the tastemakers of the late ’90s were still people, not algorithms. The best DJs had loyal fans, and even the rude and raunchy ones had hate-listeners. The on-air banter on WORR is as cringe-worthy and familiar as the alternative rock bands on the playlist. Although it’s no surprise when Dana and Jonny receive unwanted attention, it’s exciting to watch what happens when newer technology, such as caller ID and search engines, is used against them.
A fast-paced and fun throwback to the heyday of the radio era.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-0-9978588-1-5
Page Count: 417
Publisher: Twin Tree Press
Review Posted Online: May 22, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.
A promise to his best friend leads an Army serviceman to a family in need and a chance at true love in this novel.
Beckett Gentry is surprised when his Army buddy Ryan MacKenzie gives him a letter from Ryan’s sister, Ella. Abandoned by his mother, Beckett grew up in a series of foster homes. He is wary of attachments until he reads Ella’s letter. A single mother, Ella lives with her twins, Maisie and Colt, at Solitude, the resort she operates in Telluride, Colorado. They begin a correspondence, although Beckett can only identify himself by his call sign, Chaos. After Ryan’s death during a mission, Beckett travels to Telluride as his friend had requested. He bonds with the twins while falling deeply in love with Ella. Reluctant to reveal details of Ryan’s death and risk causing her pain, Beckett declines to disclose to Ella that he is Chaos. Maisie needs treatment for neuroblastoma, and Beckett formally adopts the twins as a sign of his commitment to support Ella and her children. He and Ella pursue a romance, but when an insurance investigator questions the adoption, Beckett is faced with revealing the truth about the letters and Ryan’s death, risking losing the family he loves. Yarros’ (Wilder, 2016, etc.) novel is a deeply felt and emotionally nuanced contemporary romance bolstered by well-drawn characters and strong, confident storytelling. Beckett and Ella are sympathetic protagonists whose past experiences leave them cautious when it comes to love. Beckett never knew the security of a stable home life. Ella impulsively married her high school boyfriend, but the marriage ended when he discovered she was pregnant. The author is especially adept at developing the characters through subtle but significant details, like Beckett’s aversion to swearing. Beckett and Ella’s romance unfolds slowly in chapters that alternate between their first-person viewpoints. The letters they exchanged are pivotal to their connection, and almost every chapter opens with one. Yarros’ writing is crisp and sharp, with passages that are poetic without being florid. For example, in a letter to Beckett, Ella writes of motherhood: “But I’m not the center of their universe. I’m more like their gravity.” While the love story is the book’s focus, the subplot involving Maisie’s illness is equally well-developed, and the link between Beckett and the twins is heartfelt and sincere.
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64063-533-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
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
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