Sex, humor, social commentary, and musical numbers animate this absorbing drag drama.
In Karl’s LGBTQ+ novel, a newcomer queen and an up-and-coming performer are set on a collision course in the extra-fabulous Drag Wars tournament.
Donnie’s life is far from easy—his job as a waiter barely earns enough money to take care of his younger brother Carlito while their mother is lost to the streets of Philadelphia, hopelessly addicted to a drug called Tranq. Donnie finds a reprieve on the dance floors of Club Fuego on Friday nights, when it’s taken over by the “Queers, the Queens, the Fashionistas, even the Bizarros,” each writhing body looking for love or just attention. Watching the drag queens perform, Donnie dreams of finding fame on the stage as Fangula, a Latine sensation with fans, an entourage, and a man (not a player) to love him. A new queen right off the bus from Baltimore named Jalen arrives, a voluptuous vision called Pridezilla with a singing voice that can bring even unsuspecting crowds to fevered standing ovations. Both Fangula and Pridezilla look to the advice and legacies of their elder queens to get a leg up in their inevitable showdown in the Drag Wars finals at Club Fuego. Much like the dual protagonists’ acts, everything in Karl’s book is exaggerated; the dialogue takes on a campy, John Waters–esque crassness. Despite this larger-than-life presentation, the novel still evinces a strong and serious social awareness, including nuanced discussions of poverty, sex work, and pronoun use. Pridezilla’s participation in Drag Story Hours illustrates the harmlessness and kindness of these supposedly controversial events, and both Jalen and Donnie face the same violence and bigotry toward themselves and those in their community as real-world LGBTQ+ people do. The performances on stage come alive on the page despite the lack of lights and booming pop music, and the addition of the Greek chorus–like “Snark Sharks,” with their playful yet savage jibes, brings even more humor and style to the proceedings. The story has spicier moments as well—while some are more romantic than others, they all manage to turn up the heat faster than any brightly shining stage light.
Sex, humor, social commentary, and musical numbers animate this absorbing drag drama.Pub Date: June 28, 2024
ISBN: 9798987912669
Page Count: 275
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Great crime fiction.
An apparent suicide threatens to destroy an Irish farm town in the final volume of French’s Cal Hooper trilogy.
In the fictional western Ireland townland of Ardnakelty, “there’s a girl going after missing.” Soon young Rachel Holohan is found dead in the river. Shortly before, she had stopped at Lena Dunne’s home, and nothing had seemed amiss. The medical examiner determines she’d swallowed antifreeze, and he presumes she then fell from a bridge into the water. The medical examiner and the town agree she’d died by suicide. But there is far more to the plot: 16-year-old Trey Reddy thinks Tommy Moynihan murdered Rachel. Moynihan doles out favors and punishments to the local townsfolk, who know it’s best not to cross him. Now rumors spread that Moynihan wants land and has a secret plan to forcibly buy up parcels from the locals. A factory will be built, or a great big data center, or who knows what. If Tommy’s son, Eugene, can get elected to the local council, then compulsory purchase orders for land will follow, and the farms will disappear. Eugene, who’d been romantically involved with Rachel, is wonderfully described as “on the weedy edge of good-looking” and just fine as long as you “don’t have high expectations in the way of chins.” Lena is engaged to the American Cal Hooper, an ex-cop turned woodworker. They are “more or less raising” Trey, and these three core characters are drawn into the mystery of Rachel’s death and may have to face the looming clouds of civilizational change for Ardnakelty. Lena is chastised for “asking your wee questions all round the townland,” and Trey wants to quit school, against Cal’s advice. Finally, the story’s best line: “You can’t go killing people just because they deserve it.”
Great crime fiction.Pub Date: March 31, 2026
ISBN: 9780593493465
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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