A contemplative but ultimately underwhelming tale.
In Taylor-Garcia’s literary retooling of the biblical story of Job, a school administrator is beset by professional and familial tragedy that challenges his faith.
Principal Malik Rosario has been so successful at rehabilitating a failing school in Atlanta’s Edgewood neighborhood that he’s earned the nickname “The Quiet Lion.” However, a catastrophe transforms his life: A local, poorly constructed bridge collapses, claiming the lives of many people, including two of his three sons. The official story is that the disaster was just an isolated incident, instead of yet another tragic event in this neglected community’s history—a false narrative that Malik is prepared to challenge. However, in anticipation of this response, the school authorities relieve him of his duties on the pretense that they suspect him of financial improprieties. In Taylor-Garcia’s “modern reimagining of the Book of Job,” an enigmatic figure known as “The Watcher” stands in for Satan; he coordinates the assault on Malik’s reputation, using “mass surveillance, media warfare, and political erasure.” Malik demands to confer with God about his troubles—not to hurl accusations, but rather to petition for understanding. As a whole, the story reads less like a novel than it does a didactic parable or lengthy sermon. Whatever one thinks of the author’s revision of the biblical story—a reinterpretation so stark that it bears little theological resemblance to the original—it lacks the fundamental features of a well-constructed novel: a skillfully developed plot, fully realized characters, and believable dialogue. The story’s denouement is triumphantly pious, and Malik delivers plenty of defiant oratory. However, the prose style more often feels distractingly ponderous: “He felt the weight of solitude, but more than that he felt the weight of the world’s betrayal, of God’s betrayal, of grief so dense that it held the air and the light hostage. The weight of a bridge.” The story’s thoughtful focus on technologically driven character assassination is engaging. However, it’s not enough to counter the novel’s other flaws.
A contemplative but ultimately underwhelming tale.Pub Date: April 23, 2025
ISBN: 9798892950183
Page Count: 205
Publisher: Bamboo Village Books
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.
A love story about a life of second chances.
In Nassau, in the Bahamas, casino detective Vincent LaPorta grills Alfie Logan, who’d come up a winner three times in a row at the roulette table and walked away with $2 million. “How did you do it?” asks the detective. Alfie calmly denies cheating. You wired all the money to a Gianna Rule, LaPorta says. Why? To explain, Alfie produces a composition book with the words “For the Boss, to Be Read Upon My Death” written on the cover. Read this for answers, Alfie suggests, calling it a love story. His mother had passed along to him a strange trait: He can say “Twice!” and go back to a specific time and place to have a do-over. But it only works once for any particular moment, and then he must live with the new consequences. He can only do this for himself and can’t prevent anyone from dying. Alfie regularly uses his power—failing to impress a girl the first time, he finds out more about her, goes back in time, and presto! She likes him. The premise is of course not credible—LaPorta doesn’t buy it either—but it’s intriguing. Most people would probably love to go back and unsay something. The story’s focus is on Alfie’s love for Gianna and whether it’s requited, unrequited, or both. In any case, he’s obsessed with her. He’s a good man, though, an intelligent person with ordinary human failings and a solid moral compass. Albom writes in a warm, easy style that transports the reader to a world of second chances and what-ifs, where spirituality lies close to the surface but never intrudes on the story. Though a cynic will call it sappy, anyone who is sick to their core from the daily news will enjoy this escape from reality.
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780062406682
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A heartbreaking, laugh-provoking, and absolutely Ephron-esque look at the beauty and fragility of everyday life.
A woman faces a health crisis and obsesses over a local accident in this wonderful follow-up to Sandwich (2024).
Newman begins her latest with a quote from Nora Ephron: “Death is a sniper. It strikes people you love, people you like, people you know—it’s everywhere. You could be next. But then you turn out not to be. But then again, you could be.” It sets an appropriate tone for a story that is just as full of death and dread as it is laughter. Two years after the events of Sandwich, Rocky is back home in Western Massachusetts and happily surrounded by family—her daughter, Willa, lives with her and her husband, Nick, while applying to Ph.D. programs; her widowed father, Mort, has moved into the in-law apartment behind their house. When a young man who graduated from high school with Rocky’s son, Jamie, is hit by a train, Rocky finds herself spiraling as she thinks about how close the tragedy came to her own family. She’s also freaking out about a mysterious rash her dermatologist can’t explain. Both instances are tailor-made for internet research and stalking. As Rocky obsessively googles her symptoms and finds only bad news (“Here’s what’s true about the Internet: very infrequently do people log on with their good news. Gosh, they don’t write, I had this weird rash on my forearm? And it turned out to be completely nothing!”), she also compulsively checks the Facebook page of the accident victim’s mother. Newman excels at showing how sorrow and joy coexist in everyday life. She masterfully balances a modern exploration of grief with truly laugh-out-loud lines (one passage about the absurdity of collecting a stool sample and delivering it to the doctor stands out). As Rocky deals with the byzantine frustrations of the medical system, she also has to learn, once more, how to see her children, husband, father, and herself as fully flawed and lovable humans.
A heartbreaking, laugh-provoking, and absolutely Ephron-esque look at the beauty and fragility of everyday life.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780063453913
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
PERSPECTIVES
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