Resplendent with Anderson’s trademark dry, sarcastic wit, this brief, complicated read serves as a scathing social...
Humans inhabit the bottom echelons in this brief satirical novel of alien invasion that envisions a scenario more whimper than bang.
Adam, a talented artist, lives with his mother and sister after his father abandons the family. When the 1950s-culture–obsessed vuvv landed years before, people were taken in by their promises to supply advanced technology and medicine, not understanding that they’d soon be obsolete, impoverished, and, like Adam, who suffers from a debilitating intestinal illness, without any means to pay for medical care. In short vignettes titled as if they are pieces of fine art, the bleakness of this new reality is expertly rendered—as in an early chapter in which his mother is roughed up by a fellow job seeker who threatens to burn her “motherfucking house down” if she persists in applying for the same part-time position. When they decide to rent out part of their house to another family, Adam and their daughter, Chloe, fall for each other. Monetizing their connection by broadcasting their 1950s-styled romance for the vuvv becomes mightily complicated when the relationship sours. The ethnicities of the main characters are not specified—the only time race is textually indicated is a passage where white people are shown rioting on television and blaming Mexican workers for stealing their jobs—but references to European art and the way Adam and Chloe slide into a clichéd movie vision of the 1950s both imply they are white and add further layers of interpretive complexity to the book.
Resplendent with Anderson’s trademark dry, sarcastic wit, this brief, complicated read serves as a scathing social commentary and, as the title indicates, an interrogation of free market economics. (Science fiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7636-8789-2
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Bulky, balky, talky.
In an updated quest for the Holy Grail, the narrative pace remains stuck in slo-mo.
But is the Grail, in fact, holy? Turns out that’s a matter of perspective. If you’re a member of that most secret of clandestine societies, the Priory of Sion, you think yes. But if your heart belongs to the Roman Catholic Church, the Grail is more than just unholy, it’s downright subversive and terrifying. At least, so the story goes in this latest of Brown’s exhaustively researched, underimagined treatise-thrillers (Deception Point, 2001, etc.). When Harvard professor of symbology Robert Langdon—in Paris to deliver a lecture—has his sleep interrupted at two a.m., it’s to discover that the police suspect he’s a murderer, the victim none other than Jacques Saumière, esteemed curator of the Louvre. The evidence against Langdon could hardly be sketchier, but the cops feel huge pressure to make an arrest. And besides, they don’t particularly like Americans. Aided by the murdered man’s granddaughter, Langdon flees the flics to trudge the Grail-path along with pretty, persuasive Sophie, who’s driven by her own need to find answers. The game now afoot amounts to a scavenger hunt for the scholarly, clues supplied by the late curator, whose intent was to enlighten Sophie and bedevil her enemies. It’s not all that easy to identify these enemies. Are they emissaries from the Vatican, bent on foiling the Grail-seekers? From Opus Dei, the wayward, deeply conservative Catholic offshoot bent on foiling everybody? Or any one of a number of freelancers bent on a multifaceted array of private agendas? For that matter, what exactly is the Priory of Sion? What does it have to do with Leonardo? With Mary Magdalene? With (gulp) Walt Disney? By the time Sophie and Langdon reach home base, everything—well, at least more than enough—has been revealed.
Bulky, balky, talky.Pub Date: March 18, 2003
ISBN: 0-385-50420-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2003
A promising premise subverted by the execution.
A restless AcroYoga influencer pursues love and money on reality TV.
Twenty-three-year-old Orielle Lennox’s post-college life has stalled out. Unhappy in a lackluster relationship and fueled by her older sister’s criticisms that she’s passive and codependent, Orie tries to jump-start her future by answering a casting call for the reality TV show Survivor. Discovering her father’s gambling problem and being dumped by her boyfriend shortly before leaving for Fiji to film make Orie all the more eager to dive headlong into the competition as an escape from her problems. Upon arrival, Orie (who’s cued white) and the nine other contestants—a racially diverse group of young, fit older teens and 20-somethings—find out that they’re actually on a new reality spinoff called Attached at the Hip. Furthermore, each participant has been carefully selected as a possible love or friendship match for several other competitors. Orie quickly allies with Remy, an Italian American gym bro who also happens to be her unrequited high school crush. But as the days of sun and starvation wear on and new connections form, Orie starts to question Remy’s motives and wonders who, if anyone, she can trust. Unfortunately, Orie comes across as frustratingly impulsive and immature rather than quirky and lovably offbeat. And, although moments of situational hilarity keep the story light, readers may get bogged down in the inane dialogue and the abundance of pop-culture references.
A promising premise subverted by the execution. (Fiction. 15-18)Pub Date: May 21, 2024
ISBN: 9781250760098
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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