A structurally bold, emotionally draining novel.
Set in the Ballroom scene, Govinden’s novel chronicles a silent protest.
This multifaceted novel recounts a series of fraught interpersonal dynamics and politicized conflicts. Sections of it are narrated by the Mothers, leaders in the Ballroom community, who have gathered to protest a number of disappearances from within their scene. The language used is appropriately stark and formal: “Five apostles sitting atop City Hall steps day after day; the strength of our line, the amplification of our silence.” The use of the first person plural for sections of the novel makes for some resonant moments, as the Mothers compare themselves to the police officers at their protest: “We could each buy a donut and stand on a street corner to eat it, but if one of us disappeared on leaving that street corner—the wrong us—there would be no investigation as to why.” Later, the novel’s focus shifts to Teddy, who came to stay with the Mothers as a young man and now works a government job. His feelings of frustration at different points in his life are brought into acute focus by Govinden’s prose: “Just standing in Chanel brings about a quiet revolution, an understanding that he and those he loves are good enough for these things, and how he’ll work hard to obtain them.” From there, the novel circles back around to explain the reasons for the Mothers’ protest. “Sherry is not the first child to disappear, but the first that he knows of, whose flesh-and-blood presence still lingers in the apartment,” and Teddy’s guilt over her disappearance causes him further stress. Govinden emphasizes the queer characters’ treatment by often callous officials and establishes a world where both elation and danger aren’t far away.
A structurally bold, emotionally draining novel.Pub Date: May 9, 2023
ISBN: 9781646052677
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Deep Vellum
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.
Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).
In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781250320520
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
An uncompromising message, delivered via a gripping story with two engaging heroines.
An undergraduate at Brown University unearths the buried history of a Latine artist.
As in her bestselling debut, Olga Dies Dreaming (2022), Gonzalez shrewdly anatomizes racial and class hierarchies. Her bifurcated novel begins at a posh art-world party in 1985 as the title character, a Cuban American land and body artist, garners recognition that threatens the ego of her older, more famous husband, white minimalist sculptor Jack Martin. The story then shifts to Raquel Toro, whose working-class, Puerto Rican background makes her feel out of place among the “Art History Girls” who easily chat with professors and vacation in Europe. Nonetheless, in the spring of 1998, Raquel wins a prestigious summer fellowship at the Rhode Island School of Design, and her faculty adviser is enthusiastic about her thesis on Jack Martin, even if she’s not. Soon she’s enjoying the attentions of Nick Fitzsimmons, a well-connected, upper-crust senior. As Raquel’s story progresses, Anita’s first-person narrative acquires a supernatural twist following the night she falls from the window of their apartment —“jumped? or, could it be, pushed?”—but it’s grimly realistic in its exploration of her toxic relationship with Jack. (A dedication, “In memory of Ana,” flags the notorious case of sculptor Carl Andre, tried and acquitted for the murder of his wife, artist Ana Mendieta.) Raquel’s affair with Nick mirrors that unequal dynamic when she adapts her schedule and appearance to his whims, neglecting her friends and her family in Brooklyn. Gonzalez, herself a Brown graduate, brilliantly captures the daily slights endured by someone perceived as Other, from microaggressions (Raquel’s adviser refers to her as “Mexican”) to brutally racist behavior by the Art History Girls. While a vividly rendered supporting cast urges Raquel to be true to herself and her roots, her research on Martin leads to Anita’s art and the realization that she belongs to a tradition that’s been erased from mainstream art history.
An uncompromising message, delivered via a gripping story with two engaging heroines.Pub Date: March 5, 2024
ISBN: 9781250786210
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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