A hilarious, brilliant, cynical (and maybe even a little sad) takedown of the moral vacuum that is celebrity culture.
After a beloved chef/author/TV star dies, his reputation hangs by a thread.
They say writing is a lonely business, but the three people behind the nom de plume S.E. Boyd—journalists Kevin Alexander and Joe Keohane and book editor Alessandra Lusardi—prove with their debut that a group can write a helluva novel. Hip-deep in knowing detail from the worlds of food, media, and Hollywood, they pull off a saucy spin on the death of Anthony Bourdain—only in this version, his name is John Doe, he dies while filming in Ireland, and his asphyxiation is not the result of despair but the accidental outcome of a certain sexual practice. If your Bourdain-loving hackles go up in response to this ploy, know that the book manages to artfully defang that reaction, both because the whole thing is actually about the potential effect of a salacious detail on a posthumous reputation and because in every other way John Doe is an embodiment of everything great about Bourdain. As in life, his body is discovered by a friend who's a renowned chef: "There were three chefs in the world more famous than Paolo Cabrini, all of whom were French and two of whom were dead. Paolo had cooked for five presidents, four kings, three prime ministers, two chancellors, and One Direction, which he learned was a pop band." Unfortunately, a loutish Irish bellhop named Smilin' Charlie McCree (not the strongest character in the book but a necessary one) manages to get an embarrassing photo of Paolo with his friend's corpse. Unfortunately, a desperate content provider at a trashy website makes up a fake anecdote about Doe that goes viral. Unfortunately, Nia Greene, the agent who has devoted her whole life to Doe's career, must now devote her life to controlling these problems. Meanwhile, those details! Honey-baked ham, Substack, secret rooms within secret rooms, Asian-Irish fusion cuisine, high-end interior design as a front for contract killing. They are as good as they can possibly be. Or better.
A hilarious, brilliant, cynical (and maybe even a little sad) takedown of the moral vacuum that is celebrity culture.Pub Date: Nov. 8, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-49044-0
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
Sharp writing, vivid characters, and puzzle box plotting bring the trilogy to a ringing conclusion.
A dark fantasy set on the Yale campus ends with a bang.
Galaxy “Alex” Stern of Lethe House, one of Yale’s storied secret societies, has been to hell and back. That was in Hell Bent (2023), the middle book in Bardugo’s Ninth House trilogy, where the secret societies wield not just temporal power but magic as well. Hell Bent ended with Alex and her friends rescuing her crush, mentor, and fellow Lethe officer, Daniel “Darlington” Arlington V, from eternal torment. One small wrinkle: The demon Golgarot used Alex’s blood to wedge a door open between Hell and New Haven, and his minions are slipping through. Also, one of the group has turned into a vampire, and Darlington is now half demon. “He’d given up some part of himself to preserve the rest of his human soul. He’d become both prisoner and warden.” As the final book opens, the exhausted crew are hunting yet another monster. They can’t keep this up forever; they will have to find a way to close the portal. Alex has the energetic, driven melancholy of the hard-boiled, dark fantasy heroine she is. She believes “magic is real, but safe is make-believe,” as her roommate puts it. An open hellmouth, a supportive scholar, a vampire whose story arcs precariously toward redemption, a gentleman fiend who gets literally horny when aroused, a California girl with rare supernatural powers who cracks wise as she fights fiends—the series has a lot in common with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spawn, but Bardugo’s way with words and her keen social observation keep the book from feeling derivative. A demon’s classic New England house is decorated with “ruthlessly inoffensive watercolor seascapes”; Lethe’s board president “wore the new uniform of Wall Street: a dress shirt, khakis, and a fleece with a Yale Y embroidered over the heart, as if he were on his way to a hostile takeover followed by some light rock climbing.” Will Alex and her friends get the door shut without losing Darlington? Bardugo injects her protagonist with such a convincing mix of cynicism and hope that failure seems like a distinct possibility.
Sharp writing, vivid characters, and puzzle box plotting bring the trilogy to a ringing conclusion.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2026
ISBN: 9781250884312
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2026
The queen of social activist novels has done it again. Impressive, important, and fun to read.
The World Trade Center attacks are at the center of an intricate, twisty family drama spanning decades in both directions.
“You could brace for your sister to die of a terminal illness, only to have your healthy sibling killed in a random car wreck. You could carry a baby safely to term and then, on a bright blue day in September, walk into a building that collapsed beneath your feet.” Or you could be a character in a Jodi Picoult novel and face all of the above and much, much more. Fans of My Sister’s Keeper (2004) will notice a reference to that novel in the preceding quote and be glad to hear a character from that book is back. During the Covid-19 pandemic, former teenage delinquent Jesse Fitzgerald, now a detective on the Providence, Rhode Island, police force, meets Molly Ambrose, a 19-year-old prodigy who runs the state’s emergency preparedness and response program. “Despite the fact that there were fifteen years between us and we both had enough baggage to fill a cargo hold,” as Molly puts it, the two fall madly in love. The baggage she’s referring to includes, on her side, a mother who died on 9/11 when Molly was less than three months old. Picoult supplies her signature delightful banter and gift for depicting passion and romance to win the reader’s sympathy for this possibly questionable match between dedicated public servants, whose favorite game at bedtime is “Who can think of the most terrifying worst-case scenario?” Very little more can be revealed without spoilers, but trigger warnings for this book would be a long list indeed, ranging from suicide and filicide to rape and mental illness (welcome to Picoultland!). Subplots visit evangelical and Navajo cultures as well as the ins and outs of polygraphy. Make sure to read the afterword in which Picoult explains her real-life sources of inspiration.
The queen of social activist novels has done it again. Impressive, important, and fun to read.Pub Date: Sept. 15, 2026
ISBN: 9780593726259
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
PERSPECTIVES
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
