A sometimes-problematic story that relies too heavily on its protagonist’s supposed flawlessness.
A young woman begins a modeling career to escape from her hometown in Zahr’s novel.
Rimahas been training to be a concert pianist ever since she received a piano for her 12th birthday. She loves making music, but her ultimate goal is to get out of her Russian hometown of Kursk and make a life for herself in the West. While vacationing on a cruise ship, she’s discovered by a modeling scout who’s taken with her beauty. Rima feels conflicted at first but eventually sees that modeling might be her ticket out of Russia. While temporarily living in Moscow before a modeling job, she meets an American named Alexander Loft, for whom she develops romantic feelings. As she becomes prominent in her field, she continues to think about what she really wants out of life. Zahr is a proficient writer, and her prose is often well crafted. However, the story that she tells isn’t particularly exciting. As a protagonist, Rima is a bit too perfect to be fully engaging: She’s a skilled musician who’s breathtakingly beautiful and becomes successful at modeling with relatively little effort. The overall plot has very low stakes aside from one questionable point of conflict that many readers will find offensive: Alexander has been intimate with a man in the past, and he’s seeing a therapist as a result, spurred by Rima’s assumption that he’s somehow confused about his sexual orientation. Alexander learns that he’s bisexual, but when he eventually gets a boyfriend, the story troublingly paints his bisexuality as a stop on the way to being gay—and also notes that he only managed to love Rima because she was “so perfect.”
A sometimes-problematic story that relies too heavily on its protagonist’s supposed flawlessness.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-951933-80-7
Page Count: 214
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: March 25, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
SEEN & HEARD
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.
A French art historian’s English-language fiction debut combines the story of a loving relationship between a grandfather and granddaughter with an enlightening discussion of art.
One day, when 10-year-old Mona removes the necklace given to her by her now-dead grandmother, she experiences a frightening, hour-long bout of blindness. Her parents take her to the doctor, who gives her a variety of tests and also advises that she see a psychiatrist. Her grandfather Henry tells her parents that he will take care of that assignment, but instead, he takes Mona on weekly visits to either the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, or the Centre Pompidou, where each week they study a single work of art, gazing at it deeply and then discussing its impact and history and the biography of its maker. For the reader’s benefit, Schlesser also describes each of the works in scrupulous detail. As the year goes on, Mona faces the usual challenges of elementary school life and the experiences of being an only child, and slowly begins to understand the causes of her temporary blindness. Primarily an amble through a few dozen of Schlesser’s favorite works of art—some well known and others less so, from Botticelli and da Vinci through Basquiat and Bourgeois—the novel would probably benefit from being read at a leisurely pace. While the dialogue between Henry and the preternaturally patient and precocious Mona sometimes strains credulity, readers who don’t have easy access to the museums of Paris may enjoy this vicarious trip in the company of a guide who focuses equally on that which can be seen and the context that can’t be. Come for the novel, stay for the introductory art history course.
A pleasant if not entirely convincing tribute to the power of art.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9798889661115
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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