A stirring yet rudimentary examination of failed love.
A debut volume of poetry explores love, loss, and suicide.
Described as “a poetry journal,” this collection opens with a piece of flash fiction entitled “THE TWO OF US: A STORY.” It describes a young girl vomiting in the bathroom at a college party. Inebriated and distressed, she castigates herself, asking, “Why can’t I be normal?” To her surprise, she is suddenly confronted with the image of her own body, “cold and unresponsive,” on the floor. Outside of the stall, she finds another incarnation of herself fixing her makeup. The tale introduces various themes found in the poetry that follows. Many poems, such as “THE END,” deal with breakups and the ensuing feelings of worthlessness: “Because if you go, it is the end of my fucking boring life.” Others approach thoughts of self-harm and suicide, as found in “THIS IS HOW I DEAL WITH IT”: “Maybe I’ll slit my wrists / Or cut my thighs.” But other poems, such as “BIRTHDAY SHOOTING STAR,” hope for a better life: “I want to be loved in such a way that my soul is consumed.” Glimmers of hope are nevertheless unusual in a collection dedicated to “those who have a hard time loving themselves.” Some readers will strongly identify with the female protagonist’s feelings of ostracization and her desire to numb her pain with alcohol in “THE TWO OF US.” The idea of her dividing into other “selves” is thought provoking, but the plot remains underdeveloped. Unfortunately, R.F.’s poetry often lacks nuance. The poet identifies fundamental sensations, like pain, but does not unpack these feelings using vivid language. In “THE ROOM,” R.F. writes: “Cry next to him, with the silent noise / Of a love that has died; A love from anyone. / Abandoned in a cold room / Immersed in a sea of pain / Sabotaged by the waves of loneliness.” While the oxymoron “silent noise” captures the void forged by loss, lines like “Immersed in a sea of pain” seem cliched and insufficiently explorative. The result is a collection of poetry that repeatedly circles emotions but rarely provides trenchant commentary.
A stirring yet rudimentary examination of failed love.Pub Date: March 19, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-69870-028-1
Page Count: 118
Publisher: Trafford on Demand Pub
Review Posted Online: May 2, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
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
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