An ingenious if exceedingly chatty yarn about scandal-struck society.
The woman at the center of the Philippines’ political upheaval tells all.
Vita Nova is a pop-music and movie star with 20.2 million Instagram followers, and she has a lot to say to the offscreen interviewer about Philippine politics. She was, as the title says, a girlfriend of President Fernando Valdes Estregan, a hard-liner not dissimilar to real-life strongman Rodrigo Duterte. But Syjuco’s second novel does more than consider Vita a paramour: She’s at the center of stories the country tells itself about religion, relationships, journalism, and politics. The novel is structured around transcripts of interviews between Vita and about a dozen of the men in her life: a Catholic bishop, a Muslim political leader, a DJ, a journalist, a U.S. naval officer, and more. Because Vita has strong opinions about the country—and everybody has strong opinions about her—the novel has a headlong, assertive energy and a transgressive bent. (A content warning at the opening of the book isn’t kidding: Characters spew all manner of homophobic, Islamophobic, and sexist rhetoric.) Over the course of the novel, shifts in the political atmosphere—up to and including assassination—wind up putting Vita closer to the country’s destiny than she had expected. And with each interviewee, Philippine culture is revealed as more tragicomically corrupt. (A gluttonous warlord proclaims over a long meal: “We Christians would never commit such excess—Aha! Our sixth course!”) And the references to fake news, law and order, impeachment, and more make clear that we’re not just talking about the Philippines. The interview-transcript format stifles the novel’s arc somewhat, and everybody’s chatty tendencies wind up dragging the novel, despite its exclamatory provocations. But Syjuco’s most irreverent set pieces reveal how cultures can get a woman like Vita exactly backward—rather than the know-nothing sinner she’s dismissed as, she’s the scapegoat for everyone else’s greed and ineptitude.
An ingenious if exceedingly chatty yarn about scandal-struck society.Pub Date: April 5, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-3741-7405-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2022
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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