by Raymond DeTournay ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 18, 2018
A coming-of-age story set in a remarkable hidden world.
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A teenage boy grows up on the grounds of a hospital for unwed pregnant teens in DeTournay’s debut novel.
Fourteen-year-old Rene Dardenne has never been to a city as large as St. Paul, where his mother has moved him to take a job as a nurse at the Booth Memorial Home and Hospital, a Salvation Army–run institution that serves young, unwed mothers. “Our two busiest times of the year are the result of New Year’s Eve and Prom Night,” explains a Salvation Army officer on their arrival. “The New Years’ are delivering now, and we expect Prom Nights to arrive three or four months after conception, which is also about now.” Rene and his mother will be residing on premises. As one of only two men living on the property—the other is an elderly caretaker named Max—Rene gets a crash course in all things female, from garter belts in the bathroom to the sounds of giving birth. Rene, a Roman Catholic obsessed with the parameters of sin, is highly embarrassed by his new living circumstances and does whatever he can to keep them secret from the kids at his new school. Even so, he can’t help but get involved in the complex, dramatic lives of the 50 girls who live at the home, each of whom has a colorful backstory and is undergoing one of the most emotional experiences of her life. Their struggles with stillbirths, adoption, shame, and isolation force Rene to rethink his definition of sin—and to grow up faster than he might have otherwise. DeTournay writes with humor and compassion, adeptly depicting the characters and their late-1940s Midwestern milieu: “I was embarrassed how quickly she saw through me, but at least, I got my unasked question answered. She jumped at the sound of gunshots and the wail of a World War II air raid siren. It was midnight, and the noise announced the arrival of 1950 in St. Paul, Minnesota.” The environment of the hospital is compelling and often heartbreaking, so much so that the reader will be instantly invested and committed for the remainder.
A coming-of-age story set in a remarkable hidden world.Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-68201-095-2
Page Count: 272
Publisher: North Star Press of St. Cloud
Review Posted Online: Jan. 21, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 6, 2018
A tour de force.
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New York Times Bestseller
In 1974, a troubled Vietnam vet inherits a house from a fallen comrade and moves his family to Alaska.
After years as a prisoner of war, Ernt Allbright returned home to his wife, Cora, and daughter, Leni, a violent, difficult, restless man. The family moved so frequently that 13-year-old Leni went to five schools in four years. But when they move to Alaska, still very wild and sparsely populated, Ernt finds a landscape as raw as he is. As Leni soon realizes, “Everyone up here had two stories: the life before and the life now. If you wanted to pray to a weirdo god or live in a school bus or marry a goose, no one in Alaska was going to say crap to you.” There are many great things about this book—one of them is its constant stream of memorably formulated insights about Alaska. Another key example is delivered by Large Marge, a former prosecutor in Washington, D.C., who now runs the general store for the community of around 30 brave souls who live in Kaneq year-round. As she cautions the Allbrights, “Alaska herself can be Sleeping Beauty one minute and a bitch with a sawed-off shotgun the next. There’s a saying: Up here you can make one mistake. The second one will kill you.” Hannah’s (The Nightingale, 2015, etc.) follow-up to her series of blockbuster bestsellers will thrill her fans with its combination of Greek tragedy, Romeo and Juliet–like coming-of-age story, and domestic potboiler. She re-creates in magical detail the lives of Alaska's homesteaders in both of the state's seasons (they really only have two) and is just as specific and authentic in her depiction of the spiritual wounds of post-Vietnam America.
A tour de force.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-312-57723-0
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2017
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by Lisa Jewell ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 24, 2018
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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