Think Adriana Trigiani writing with a sharpened nib, and pray to your own saints that we’ll read more from Leone soon.
An awkward, spiky Italian American teen navigates family chaos, Catholic school, and misogyny in 1960s Boston, with brio.
Christina Falcone thinks she doesn’t have much going for her. Her hair is wild, her breasts slow to grow, no one believes in her academic ambitions—but worst of all, she’s lonely, especially as high school begins and her former best friends turn to cheerleading, which she considers “fun for the feeble-minded”; she’ll crank up her Joan Baez and Simon & Garfunkel albums instead. If that sounds like a YA novel, be assured it’s not, with author Leone’s close third-person narration providing a knowing, ironic tone. Chapters feel as different, and occasionally as uneven, as rough gems in medieval crowns. Christina has a thing for the saints of that era; she devours their stories and obsesses over the ones who supposedly endured multiple torments. When she discovers the never-canonized St. Christina the Astonishing, who preferred birds to people, she knows she’s found her own idol. If only her 11th-grade teacher Sister Coronada could see that Christina dreams of the kind of attention the holy martyrs have, and convince Joe and Rita Falcone that their unusual daughter should go to college instead of staying at home working until she’s married. Leone, who played Christopher Moltisanti’s mother on The Sopranos, knows her Catholic-guilt territory, but she also nails the working-class Beantown ethos, with students addressing nuns as “S’tah,” frequent jabs at the Irish from the Italians and vice versa. As you commiserate with Christina and laugh at her very small world’s idiosyncrasies, you’ll almost smell the Sunday sauce on the Falcones’ stove. As Rita says, “Eat. God wants you to eat. It’s not a sin. It’s a sin to waste food.” That could mean anything from an overstuffed sandwich to a slice of ricotta pie, so why not have both? In other words, this brash, witty, slice-of-life book is a feast.
Think Adriana Trigiani writing with a sharpened nib, and pray to your own saints that we’ll read more from Leone soon.Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9781636142616
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Akashic
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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