A page-turning vision of a future made all too plausible by our volatile present.
A dystopian fantasy in which our present-day racial hierarchies and caste prejudices are ramped up—as are the humiliations, cruelties, and perils that go with them.
Askaripour follows up his debut, Black Buck (2021), by imagining an America even more divided by region and race 500 years into the future. By then, the world’s land masses are designated as hemispheres rather than continents and nations. The action takes place in the Northwestern Hemisphere, whose people are divided between what’s called the Dominant Population, or DPs, and Invisibles, second-class citizens denied opportunities and rights because they aren’t fully “seen” by DPs, who demean, ostracize, and even brutalize them when their presence is acknowledged. One of these Invisibles is Candace, who also goes by Sweetmint, a young woman whose intelligence and determination lead to a coveted apprenticeship with Croger Tenmase, an illustrious inventor considered a mystifying eccentric by his fellow DPs. Among the many tribulations Sweetmint has had to overcome is the disappearance of her older brother, Shanu. Still, she flourishes under Tenmase’s guidance until her world crashes around her with the news that Shanu is the primary suspect in the assassination of the hemisphere’s chief executive. Sweetmint leaves Tenmase’s haven to search for Shanu, hoping to find him before the authorities do. Her principal nemeses are Curts, the hemispheric guard director, and Stephan Jolis, a ruthless young aspirant for the executive’s job, pledging greater repression of the Invisibles if elected. Askaripour, whose first novel was a satire of class and racial transactions in corporate America, exhibits some of the same hard-driving and, at times, heavy-handed depictions of bigotry here. The author infuses his conscientious worldbuilding with audacity and intricacy down to the social rituals and the epithets casually hurled at minorities. (In this future Earth, the words “Black” and “white” are never explicitly used to classify characters.) And as the propulsive narrative runs its course, the interactions between social castes become subtler and less predictable, especially toward the book’s stunning, even stinging, conclusion.
A page-turning vision of a future made all too plausible by our volatile present.Pub Date: July 9, 2024
ISBN: 9780593472347
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2024
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 debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.
A high school senior pursues an affair with her teacher.
Seventeen-year-old Waldo, the narrator of McCurdy’s fiction debut, lives in Anchorage, Alaska, with her mother, though she’s long been the parent in their relationship. She heats her own frozen meals and pays the bills on time while her mom chases man after man and makes well-meaning promises she never keeps. Waldo blows her Victoria’s Secret wages on online shopping sprees and binges on junk food, inevitably crashing after the fleeting highs of her indulgences. Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher, has “thinning hair and nose pores”; he’s 40 years old and married with a child. Nevertheless—or possibly as a result?—Waldo’s attraction to him is “instant. So sudden it’s alarming. So palpable it’s confusing.” Mr. Korgy professes to want to keep their friendship aboveboard, but after a sexual encounter at the school’s winter formal that she initiates, an affair begins. Will this reckless pursuit be the one that actually satisfies Waldo, and is she as mature as she thinks she is? Waldo is a keen observer of people and provides sharp commentary on the punishing work of female beauty. Readers of McCurdy’s bestselling memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died (2022), will surely be curious about the tumultuous mother-daughter relationship, and it is one of the novel’s highlights, full of realistic pity and anger and need. (“I want to scream at her. I want her to hug me.”) Unfortunately, the prose is often unwieldy and sometimes downright cringeworthy: When Waldo tells Mr. Korgy she loves him, “The words hang in the air in that constipated way they do when you know that you shouldn’t have said them.” Waldo frequently lists emotions and adjectives in triplicate, and events that could be significant aren’t sufficiently explored or given enough space to breathe before the novel races on to the next thing.
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593723739
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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