Glowing moments of wisdom but imperfect prose.
An unexpected inheritance leads a young woman on a trip across the U.S. and Canada.
Leah Fern and her magician mother, Jeannie Starr, were part of the Blazing Calyx Carnival up until her mother left her with a friend and never returned. Fifteen years later, on her 21st birthday, Leah feels “penned in by the impenetrable wires of solitude, weighted by the kind of shapeless helplessness only the abandoned know,” and has decided to end her life. A knock interrupts her plans, however, and she receives news that her neighbor Essie East has died and left her an inheritance. After some initial reluctance due to not knowing the woman well, Leah is given a box containing a letter, a check, and an obelisk-shaped urn inlaid with gemstones containing Essie’s ashes. The letter explains that Essie knew Leah’s mother and that if Leah follows her instructions to scatter her ashes, more information about her mother will be revealed. The letter also has the address for the post office where she'll find the next letter. With each letter Leah learns more about her mother and Essie’s life. Essie describes how she befriended four kindred spirits at an artists’ colony, and they decided to perform nine full moon ceremonies across North America together—the same route Leah discovers she is following to scatter Essie’s ashes. Though this plot feels familiar, there is much to admire about the author's glittering imagination. Descriptive writing is both a strength and a weakness for Chin. The pacing is unbalanced because she spends too much time on vivid descriptions of very minor things. While beautiful, these meandering moments often untether the plot, which eventually becomes hard to recover. Nevertheless, traveling with Leah Fern and seeing the world through the eyes of an empath are enjoyable. And Chin's final piece of insight—“What we know is that even the most lost people can find their way”—reverberates through the pages.
Glowing moments of wisdom but imperfect prose.Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-612-19986-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Melville House
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2022
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
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
SEEN & HEARD
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