A somewhat unfocused lesson on the diverging paths that life can take.
An ill-fated romance inspires a young man’s meditations on society, politics, and religion in this novel.
Florian, a newly minted lawyer, and his girlfriend, Oblina, a college student, meet for a drink. The young man is eager to embark on the next phase of his life, and he plans to settle down with Oblina and pursue a career with a prestigious firm in a foreign city. But Oblina unceremoniously dumps him, announcing, “I really want you to go away.” The breakup alters the course of Florian’s life; shaken by the change in his circumstances, he fails to show up for the first day of his new job, much to the consternation of his father. Instead, he decides to write a book for all the “superficial, stupid” people in which he will “try to put everything right, to point at their mistakes, to show them the solutions using the right examples.” The remainder of the book alternates between Florian’s and Oblina’s lives, with excerpts from the former’s book in progress. Both of their stories end in tragedy, although Oblina seems positioned for even more misery at the book’s end, while Florian has “surmounted the top” of a literal mountain and seems poised to tackle even greater challenges ahead. That’s not surprising, given the way Grand consistently emphasizes the differences between the young man and his ex-girlfriend. Oblina is said to have “limited mental abilities,” and is portrayed as a promiscuous, lower-middle-class gold digger, while Florian is shown to be an intelligent member of the upper class. In one of the novel’s more disturbing passages, Oblina picks up a guy in a bar who rapes her, and both the sexual assault and her subsequent pregnancy appear to be presented as just punishment for her rejection of Florian. The novel’s attempts at social commentary also fall flat. That said, the novel has some evocative details (“The wind drove autumn leaves along the moonlit pavement”) and clever observations (“Heaven seemed to be sort of a library to her from which you could borrow books on only one boring subject”).
A somewhat unfocused lesson on the diverging paths that life can take.Pub Date: Sept. 7, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5172-0250-7
Page Count: 328
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A thriller that fails when it turns to the supernatural.
A Harvard freshman investigates the suicide of her schizophrenic brother and finds herself chasing a conspiracy and hearing the voices of the dead.
Cady Archer is determined to attend Harvard even though her beloved older brother, Eric, killed himself there. Considered a genius in math and science, Eric suffered from schizophrenia but had stopped taking his prescriptions, and his yearlong mental health spiral into paranoia and delusion still haunts Cady and her parents. Cady is attending Harvard against her mother’s wishes, but she’s driven by a need to understand what happened the night Eric died. Her quest leads her to a handsome, seductive friend of Eric’s, the professor with whom he was working on a secret project, and something more troubling: voices in her head. Is Cady suffering from schizophrenia, too? Or are the voices she’s hearing truly ghosts, real people who once lived on the Harvard campus and faced their own dilemmas there? The question of Cady’s mental health is interesting, and Serritella—best known for the essay collections she writes with her mother, thriller writer Lisa Scottoline (I See Life Through Rosé-Colored Glasses, 2018, etc.)—brings the famous campus to life in a vivid way. She also effectively explores the aftermath of loss and grief on a family. But Serritella is on shaky ground once the story veers into the supernatural. Cady’s conversations with the ghosts are tiresome and ultimately don’t add much to the narrative. In fact, they detract from what could have been a solid psychological thriller. Her conversations with Bilhah, a slave who is terrified her son will be sold away from her, feel uncomfortably like pandering. The book is repetitive and far too long, and though the endgame strives to shock readers with twists, it's ultimately unsatisfying.
A thriller that fails when it turns to the supernatural.Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-525-51036-9
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Lots of frenzied flipping back and forth for readers who like to figure out the puzzle.
Witnessing a suicide proves almost fatal for the witness herself.
Shay Miller would not have been on that subway platform had she not taken the 22 seconds required to tie up her ponytail. Because she did, she is the sole witness to a suicide that changes her life. But is she stalking the friends of the dead girl, or are they stalking her? It seems to be both, as Hendricks and Pekkanen (An Anonymous Girl, 2019) unfold another one of their intricately plotted, female-focused thrillers. Rage about rape and sexual abuse underlies the plot as Google searches, dating apps, and hacked phones move it forward, making this a thriller of the moment. Here, the evil men are on the sidelines—the women are pitted against each other in a complicated game of cat and mouse. Shay, who is lonely, insecure, and broke, is easily drawn in by the cool and confident Moore sisters, who ply her with beauty makeovers, a “sea-blue leather purse,” “a sugar cookie scented Nest candle, with notes of Tahitian vanilla and bourbon infused caramel,” and, most devastatingly, the illusion of friendship. But socially awkward, highly observant Shay, who makes her way through life by recording statistics and factoids about human nature in a “Data Book,” can only be fooled so long. “Between 73 and 79 percent of homicides during a 15-year period were committed by offenders known to the victim,” she notes. Good thing to know. The authors dole out clues in a series of interlocking flashbacks; finally we get the detail that makes the pieces come together, with just a few little issues to argue about in your book club.
Lots of frenzied flipping back and forth for readers who like to figure out the puzzle.Pub Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-20203-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
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