Reasonably involving when appreciated on its own terms.
Two unusual people find intellectual and emotional stimulation with each other, shaking up their stagnant lives.
Regan is a charismatic aspiring artist and failed counterfeiter who struggles to feel or find purpose in anything, a condition she attributes to the pills she takes to moderate her bipolar disorder. Aldo is a doctoral student in theoretical mathematics whose thought processes are so abstruse and relentlessly active that he is a terrible lecturer, lacks any close relationships other than with his father, and requires drugs to quiet his brain. One day, Regan is volunteering as a docent at the Art Institute of Chicago when she encounters Aldo sitting on the floor of a gallery trying to puzzle out the secrets of time travel. Thus begins a peculiar acquaintanceship built on six important conversations that eventually spark an all-encompassing, dangerously obsessive love. Is this relationship something that will bring out the potential best from these two, or their worst? The story is somewhat burdened by the reader's expectations of where it might be going. If an author is currently writing a series of contemporary fantasy novels that incorporate time travel, then breaks off midsequence to publish a new work with a science fictional–sounding title and a main character obsessed with theoretical time travel, then it’s natural to assume that, eventually, actual time travel will feature in the plot. These two people are so far outside the ordinary that it’s difficult to conceive of them existing in this mundane world. The omniscient narrator suggests that the couple’s meeting is an epic moment. All of this is to say that fans of The Atlas Six (2022) and The Atlas Paradox (2022) expecting magic, time travel, or any other speculative elements may be disappointed when these expectations are built up to a certain extent but never fulfilled. If this work and Blake’s other books share something, it’s that characters who are not easy to like are still interesting to read about.
Reasonably involving when appreciated on its own terms.Pub Date: Nov. 29, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-88816-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: Oct. 20, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 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
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