A solid drama with a well-developed cast.
Two orphans create their own little family and overcome life’s obstacles in Paxson’s debut novel.
It was just another day at the Dime, a five-and-dime store in Northville, New York.Lily Madison, who works there, is watching high schoolers shop after school lets out for the day, worrying about her younger sister, Sophie, who’s also in high school. Their parents were killed in a car accident many years ago, which also left Sophie paralyzed from the waist down; since then, she’s had a tendency to withdraw into herself and refrain from socializing with her classmates. Teenager Pete Boynton just wants to have something special for his birthday, and since his abusive parents aren’t going to do anything for him, he decides to take matters into his own hands by stealing a shirt from the Dime. Lily catches him but offers him a deal: If he asks Sophie to the upcoming school dance, she’ll let him keep the shirt and won’t turn him in. Pete agrees, mostly due to his fear of what his father will do if the police are called. However, Sophie throws a wrench in their plans by taking the initiative—and asking Pete to the dance first. Unfortunately, the day of the dance doesn’t work out like they all hoped; instead, Pete shows up on Lily and Sophie’s doorstep bloody and bruised after being beaten by his dad. Because of this, the three form a bond that will change their lives. Paxson’s slice-of-life novel presents an unusual kind of found family in a story that’s character-driven and compelling. What’s most notable about the novel, though, is the author’s portrayal of the anxiety that Pete faces; early on, he describes it as being an octopus, and images of tentacles recur as Pete thinks and worries about various troublesome aspects of his life over the course of the story. The tragedies that Lily and Sophie have suffered also help to make them relatable characters, and the work’s secondary players, such as Pete’s parents and Lily’s friends the Anthems, also help to make this a consistently engaging read.
A solid drama with a well-developed cast.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: KingMidget Press Book
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
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
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