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
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
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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