An often charming and funny coming-of-age tale.
Garvin (A Faithful Son, 2016) tells the story of a 13-year-old orphan sent to live with her forthright great-aunt in this novel.
When Poppy Wainwright’s grandmother dies, she travels from her home in Arkansas to live with her grandmother’s older sister, Sookie, in Savannah, Georgia. “Your Grandma Lainey was a self-righteous nit-wit,” Sookie tells Poppy upon their first meeting, “and if I had the gumption, I’d drive myself up to Mountain Home and spit on her freshly dug grave.” Sookie is everything Poppy’s grandmother was not: atheistic, slovenly, suspicious, prone to vendettas, and completely lacking any verbal filter. Yet there’s much that this foulmouthed, long-lived woman has to teach young Sookie about the world and how to be a woman in it. Sookie initially warns Poppy away from the locals—particularly the neighbor boys, with whom the old woman participates in an ongoing feud. Poppy manages to befriend Donita Pendergast, a young woman from church. As Poppy and Sookie become involved with Donita’s fraught relationship with her husband, Poppy learns some things about her own troubled family history from her great aunt—including some insight into how Sookie became so cynical. Following two women at either end of life, this novel is a fine submission in the long tradition of Southern bildungsromans. Garvin animates his characters with wonderfully vulgar dialogue, and he isn’t afraid to turn the reader’s stomach just a bit with his physical descriptions; for example, he makes sure to include the detail that “Yellow cataracts blanketed [Sookie’s] eyes, like two blue marbles coated by lemon custard.” The author also manages to tackle serious issues of sexuality and domestic violence while keeping the book lighthearted and highly readable. If he errs, it’s in his maximalism: the book feels bloated at more than 350 pages, in part due to the fact that he provides some pieces of information three or four times—usually, it seems, because he simply can’t decide which phrasing he likes best. Some readers may also find the tone too cute by half, but others who subscribe to Garvin’s larger-than-life vision won’t want it to end.
An often charming and funny coming-of-age tale.Pub Date: July 27, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5455-6872-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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