A poignant romance that explores the complexities of a long-distance relationship.
Personal and professional pressures threaten to undermine a young couple’s attachment in this sequel.
Matthew Campbell and Lilia Bennett-Parker could not be happier. Friends since childhood, the two have watched their relationship blossom into a long-distance romance. Lilia, a cellist, attends graduate school in Boston while Matt lives in Pennsylvania, where his company, Knowledge Portal, is a leader in math and science education software. During a performance in Boston, Lilia catches the eye of Eduardo Santana, an acclaimed pianist and composer. He is writing a score for a new film and approaches Lilia with an offer to audition for the orchestra that will play the music. Lilia is conflicted by the proposal because she will need to move to California. Matt has problems of his own in Pennsylvania. His brother, Paul, a recovering addict, has moved back home, and Matt’s business partner wants to enter the online competitive gaming market. Matt is supportive when Lilia is accepted into the orchestra, but the distance puts a strain on their relationship. As they face professional stress and personal tragedy, and Eduardo’s campaign to seduce Lilia intensifies, they wonder whether their love will survive. Carr’s (The Bennett Women, 2015) novel is fast-paced and satisfying and could be enjoyed as a stand-alone. The author is adept at rendering a vivid portrait of Matt’s and Lilia’s distinctive worlds. Matt is passionate about STEM education while Lilia’s string-instrument talents lead her to California playing alongside the best musicians in the industry. The couple are surrounded by strong supporting characters, including the dashing Eduardo and violinist Mei Li, whose desire to become a mother culminates in a health crisis. Although the dialogue occasionally lapses into exposition (“Anyway, we’ve known each other since we were kids,” says Matt. “Having our grandparents live next door to one another”) and some of the subplots are resolved a little too conveniently, the story is well-developed. Ultimately, Carr demonstrates a knack for creating appealing and nuanced characters.
A poignant romance that explores the complexities of a long-distance relationship.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-973867-94-4
Page Count: 472
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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