A creative approach to an old story that sometimes turns didactic.
A fictional dramatization of Jesus’ ministry relayed by a nameless disciple.
The unnamed narrator of the story is born in Bethlehem to a Jewish mother and a Samaritan father who regale him often with stories of the Messiah’s impending visit. As a young boy, he witnesses an effulgent light, and an angel of God announces that the Savior will be born on that day. He sees that newborn infant swaddled in his manger and learns that he is named Jesus. Over the course of the next 12 years, the narrator gleans nothing more about Jesus, whose family possibly fled to Egypt to avoid King Herod’s persecution. In the meantime, the narrator suffers greatly and loses his entire family to illness. He encounters Jesus—only a boy—and is invited to join him for Passover dinner. The narrator declines but soon becomes intoxicated by his humble yet radical teachings. He finds his faith continually challenged both by personal tragedy—his wife and unborn child both die during childbirth—as well his bafflement regarding Jesus’ message. It’s not quite clear to him what precisely is required of him as a disciple. The narrator is stung when Jesus doesn’t choose him to be among his 12 apostles, though he later forges a friendship with Luke, whose Gospel is the principal historical source for King’s book. The author reproduces many of the more familiar stories found in the New Testament. King’s authorial innovation—artfully conveyed with impressive historical authenticity—is the depiction of these events from the perspective of an average man for the purpose of demonstrating the universality of Jesus’ message. The prose, which aims to instruct, is always clear and sometimes refined and should be easily intelligible to a fairly young readership. In the preface, debut author King claims the book is written for a non-Christian audience as well, but it’s unlikely this will arouse the interest of those who aren’t enthusiastic believers.
A creative approach to an old story that sometimes turns didactic.Pub Date: Aug. 30, 2017
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 155
Publisher: Westbow Press
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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