by Liz Moore ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 26, 2016
This is for readers who love a slow, methodical reveal.
Moore’s latest novel (Heft, 2012, etc.) deals with the debilitating effects of memory loss on a father and his young daughter, using a computer program as a powerful aid for uncovering a seemingly lost family history.
Ada Sibelius is 12 when she first notices a change in her father, the brilliant head of a computer science laboratory in 1980s Boston: “She could not articulate what was different in his demeanor, but it triggered a deep-seated uneasiness in her.” Ada’s childhood hasn’t been normal; her home schooling takes place at the lab, where she goes each day with David, as well as through puzzles that test the knowledge Ada is constantly receiving. She has no friends her age: Liston, her father’s co-worker and close friend, serves as her only female confidante. So when David starts to forget things, even disappearing for hours at a time, to whom can Ada go for help? She’s reluctant to betray the secret of the only person who understands her: “They…looked like mirror images of one another; one larger, one smaller: a Rorschach test; a paper snowflake, unfolded." But then David’s condition begins to worsen rapidly, and Ada is forced to move in with Liston’s family. During this transition in custody, questions surrounding David’s past and identity begin to surface. But he’s no longer capable of explaining himself. Years later, Ada is working in Silicon Valley, and she still doesn’t have answers. What remains of her father before his decline is his life’s work, the language-processing program ELIXIR. David spent hours each day speaking with ELIXIR, teaching it new phrases. Can the program help Ada understand who David really was? While David’s mystery drives the story, this is an internally focused narrative that develops slowly through thoughts and observations rather than actions. This makes sense, as David's and Ada’s existences are so contained, but it takes patience to reach the point when the story becomes gripping. The biggest impact comes in the last chapter, which brings things together powerfully—if only chapters like this were intermingled throughout.
This is for readers who love a slow, methodical reveal.Pub Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-393-24168-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 6, 2018
A tour de force.
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New York Times Bestseller
In 1974, a troubled Vietnam vet inherits a house from a fallen comrade and moves his family to Alaska.
After years as a prisoner of war, Ernt Allbright returned home to his wife, Cora, and daughter, Leni, a violent, difficult, restless man. The family moved so frequently that 13-year-old Leni went to five schools in four years. But when they move to Alaska, still very wild and sparsely populated, Ernt finds a landscape as raw as he is. As Leni soon realizes, “Everyone up here had two stories: the life before and the life now. If you wanted to pray to a weirdo god or live in a school bus or marry a goose, no one in Alaska was going to say crap to you.” There are many great things about this book—one of them is its constant stream of memorably formulated insights about Alaska. Another key example is delivered by Large Marge, a former prosecutor in Washington, D.C., who now runs the general store for the community of around 30 brave souls who live in Kaneq year-round. As she cautions the Allbrights, “Alaska herself can be Sleeping Beauty one minute and a bitch with a sawed-off shotgun the next. There’s a saying: Up here you can make one mistake. The second one will kill you.” Hannah’s (The Nightingale, 2015, etc.) follow-up to her series of blockbuster bestsellers will thrill her fans with its combination of Greek tragedy, Romeo and Juliet–like coming-of-age story, and domestic potboiler. She re-creates in magical detail the lives of Alaska's homesteaders in both of the state's seasons (they really only have two) and is just as specific and authentic in her depiction of the spiritual wounds of post-Vietnam America.
A tour de force.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-312-57723-0
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2017
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by Lisa Jewell ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 24, 2018
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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