A rather flat offering from an exceptional author.
Kafka, King Arthur, and topiary hedges all play a part in this coming-of-age story from the author of Doxology (2019) and Private Novelist (2016).
Zink’s stories are filled with oddballs, and her latest novel is no exception. Bran is in fourth grade when her mother enters a Tibetan Buddhist monastery, leaving the girl in the care of her “common-law stepfather,” Doug, in Torrance, California. She’s been working at the plant nursery Doug’s family runs since she was a toddler, so life as an unpaid laborer is the only life she’s ever known, but being the only female in the house becomes increasingly uncomfortable after she hits adolescence—especially when the bikers come to party at the Henderson place. She makes her first friend when she’s in the sixth grade. Jay is rich and gay and an aspiring—and singularly untalented—flamenco dancer. At UCLA, Jay meets Peter, and both Jay and Bran are instantly smitten. Peter’s engagement to another woman does nothing to quell Bran’s desire for him, nor does it stop Peter from repeatedly declaring his love for Bran. A lot of things happen to Bran—she runs away from the Henderson farm after a particularly harrowing encounter with the bikers; at Peter’s insistence, she decides to try her hand at screenwriting; she gets a job as a barista—but her will-they, won’t-they relationship with Peter is the narrative’s central concern. The problem with this is that it’s difficult to understand why Bran and Jay are so obsessed with Peter. Early on, Bran declares, “Throughout this text, I will employ the token ‘[…]’ to indicate inability to quote, paraphrase, or reconstruct things Peter said,” and this is a blessing because Peter is long-winded, pedantic, and occasionally condescending. He vacillates between praising Bran’s beauty and brilliance and reminding her that she’s not quite as smart as him. Bran has a lot in common with Penny, the engaging protagonist of Nicotine (2016), but Zink's new heroine is subsumed by her tiresome crush.
A rather flat offering from an exceptional author.Pub Date: May 24, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-53489-2
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
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 debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.
A high school senior pursues an affair with her teacher.
Seventeen-year-old Waldo, the narrator of McCurdy’s fiction debut, lives in Anchorage, Alaska, with her mother, though she’s long been the parent in their relationship. She heats her own frozen meals and pays the bills on time while her mom chases man after man and makes well-meaning promises she never keeps. Waldo blows her Victoria’s Secret wages on online shopping sprees and binges on junk food, inevitably crashing after the fleeting highs of her indulgences. Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher, has “thinning hair and nose pores”; he’s 40 years old and married with a child. Nevertheless—or possibly as a result?—Waldo’s attraction to him is “instant. So sudden it’s alarming. So palpable it’s confusing.” Mr. Korgy professes to want to keep their friendship aboveboard, but after a sexual encounter at the school’s winter formal that she initiates, an affair begins. Will this reckless pursuit be the one that actually satisfies Waldo, and is she as mature as she thinks she is? Waldo is a keen observer of people and provides sharp commentary on the punishing work of female beauty. Readers of McCurdy’s bestselling memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died (2022), will surely be curious about the tumultuous mother-daughter relationship, and it is one of the novel’s highlights, full of realistic pity and anger and need. (“I want to scream at her. I want her to hug me.”) Unfortunately, the prose is often unwieldy and sometimes downright cringeworthy: When Waldo tells Mr. Korgy she loves him, “The words hang in the air in that constipated way they do when you know that you shouldn’t have said them.” Waldo frequently lists emotions and adjectives in triplicate, and events that could be significant aren’t sufficiently explored or given enough space to breathe before the novel races on to the next thing.
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593723739
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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