With its luminous depiction of all that has been lost and what remains at risk, there is no better book to read right now.
A gorgeously immersive story of childhood cut short by war.
“My brother, Yuri, swimming in the River Desna”: As Wachman’s breathtaking debut opens, Artem Vovchenko draws the first picture in a sketchbook his father has sent him from the United States for his 12th birthday. It will be followed by other images of a sweet childhood in the small town of Chernihiv, Ukraine—going to school for the first time, riding bikes and taking dares, watching horror movies at a sleepover, visiting their grandfather’s farm in the countryside, where the boys try to earn money for a Nintendo Switch by collecting sunflower seeds. For a while, Artem’s most troubling problem is wondering whether his best friend, Viktor, shares his more-than-friendly feelings—sometimes, it seems he might! But on Feb. 24, 2022, the boys’ world is shattered by the arrival of Russian soldiers, and before long Artem and Yuri are on their own, fighting to survive in the devastated hellscape that used to be their home. About as amazing and impressive as you can imagine, this 25-year-old debut author from Massachusetts has evoked the details of life in Ukraine with utterly convincing clarity, and his depiction of the specific brutality of war will bring you to tears. The key to this achievement is the crystal-clear voice of Artem, a big brother lingering at the far edge of childhood, worshipping his mama and grandpa, bitterly missing his father, learning his country’s history, riding the roller coaster of his crush—then pitched abruptly into a jagged world of violence, grief, shame, responsibility, and hate. He is a narrator to fall in love with, evoking connections to the work of Anthony Marra, Justin Torres, and J.D. Salinger. The structure of the book, unfolding via 100 scenes from Artem’s sketchbook, underlines the essential role of art and storytelling as survival skills for life’s most ordinary and extraordinary challenges. As an epigraph suggests, “War cannot be understood; it must be felt.” Wachman does the essential work of making us feel.
With its luminous depiction of all that has been lost and what remains at risk, there is no better book to read right now.Pub Date: Aug. 12, 2025
ISBN: 9780063418226
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.
An artwork’s value grows if you understand the stories of the people who inspired it.
Never in her wildest dreams would foster kid Louisa dream of meeting C. Jat, the famous painter of The One of the Sea, which depicts a group of young teens on a pier on a hot summer’s day. But in Backman’s latest, that’s just what happens—an unexpected (but not unbelievable) set of circumstances causes their paths to collide right before the dying 39-year-old artist’s departure from the world. One of his final acts is to bequeath that painting to Louisa, who has endured a string of violent foster homes since her mother abandoned her as a child. Selling the painting will change her life—but can she do it? Before deciding, she accompanies Ted, one of the artist’s close friends and one of the young teens captured in that celebrated painting, on a train journey to take the artist’s ashes to his hometown. She wants to know all about the painting, which launched Jat’s career at age 14, and the circle of beloved friends who inspired it. The bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (2014) and other novels, Backman gives us a heartwarming story about how these friends, set adrift by the violence and unhappiness of their homes, found each other and created a new definition of family. “You think you’re alone,” one character explains, “but there are others like you, people who stand in front of white walls and blank paper and only see magical things. One day one of them will recognize you and call out: ‘You’re one of us!’” As Ted tells stories about his friends—how Jat doubted his talents but found a champion in fiery Joar, who took on every bully to defend him; how Ali brought an excitement to their circle that was “like a blinding light, like a heart attack”—Louisa recognizes herself as a kindred soul and feels a calling to realize her own artistic gifts. What she decides to do with the painting is part of a caper worthy of the stories that Ted tells her. The novel is humorous, poignant, and always life-affirming, even when describing the bleakness of the teens’ early lives. “Art is a fragile magic, just like love,” as someone tells Louisa, “and that’s humanity’s only defense against death.”
A tender and moving portrait about the transcendent power of art and friendship.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9781982112820
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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