Another slightly edgy “sad girl” novel, distinct in its inclusion of a nonbinary love interest and a celebrity cameo.
A depressed young woman attempts to form her identity through parasocial relationships, one of which she manifests into existence.
Elsa has been dumped by a chic older couple, her bosses and lovers of a year and a half. Heartbroken and out of a job, she moves back in with her parents in her sleepy hometown. The family watches an unnamed film together, which the discerning reader will quickly identify as Call Me by Your Name (2018), and Elsa finds that “she had been moved,” deeply, by the performance of the young actor—which would be, you guessed it, Timothée Chalamet. Elsa becomes obsessed with Chalamet, who’s referred to only as “the actor-character,” and in an extraordinary coincidence, she sees him at her town’s local coffee shop days later. He’s starring in a play in the town’s annual theater festival, and Elsa devotes herself to meek attempts at grabbing his attention from outside his retinue of haute creatives and hangers-on. Her life becomes a blur of hostessing at the local restaurant, stalking “the man and the woman” and various influencers on social media, smoking on the roof outside her childhood bedroom, and—briefly and unspectacularly—encountering the actor. Over time, her interests shift from the actor to one of his companions: a dark-haired person named Sam. When Sam finally notices her, Elsa must reckon with who she is, and who she could become, after hitting rock bottom. This debut is realistic in its portrayal of a listless young woman lacking direction, and some readers will find many moments to relate to. The endless repetition of actions and thought patterns that fill the first two-thirds of the book mirror the monotony of Elsa’s days, but they quickly begin to drag. We move through Elsa’s life as she does, sleepily, watching her emotions instead of feeling them. The style is formal and detached, which can feel stilted at times, but there are lines that shine with wisdom: “She wondered if progress or ‘healing’…was merely a flattening out, a ridding of affect so that one might remain placid in the face of almost anything, a pebble worn down to its impenetrable core.”
Another slightly edgy “sad girl” novel, distinct in its inclusion of a nonbinary love interest and a celebrity cameo.Pub Date: July 2, 2024
ISBN: 9781668025109
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.
Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).
In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781250320520
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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