While not every moment is captivating, this uplifting tale shows how ideas can transform lives.
A novel focuses on a spiritually ambitious power couple.
Peter Donovan is a 29-year-old stockbroker in New York City. In the opening pages, his 25-year-old wife, Amy, decides to leave him. She has taken up with a man in their apartment building. Peter uses this momentous event as an opportunity: He heads to a retreat in California. It is there that he learns to meditate and meets Stella Cornfield, an acquaintance of an investment banker. Stella is also recently single and on a spiritual journey of her own. When the two return to the East Coast, they connect and end up forming a couple. Both are successful and wealthy, yet they yearn for something more from life. They find themselves engrossed by the works of authors like Khalil Gibran and Neville Goddard. Both are also troubled by their former lovers. Amy seems bent on a downward spiral since her breakup with Peter and asks for help. Stella’s ex-boyfriend Marty Chen sues her on baseless grounds. Her lawyer demands that Marty donate $1 million to a charity of Stella’s choosing. Stella then decides to use the money to create something special with Peter. It is a decision that will ultimately benefit everyone. Zahr’s story is at its best when exploring the finer points of Peter’s and Stella’s beliefs. Goddard’s ideas receive particular attention and even influence Stella’s views on her health. Readers are shown firsthand just how one can take concepts and put them into action. But the dialogue that propels the tale tends to be less illuminating. Characters often express themselves with bland sentiments. For instance, Peter says of Amy early on: “I’m not eager to take her back nor do I miss her company.” At a later point, one character flatly asks another: “What are your plans for this weekend?” Nevertheless, the book makes philosophical concepts relatable. Though they exist in a work of fiction, the intriguing characters change in ways that demonstrate the true power of their convictions.
While not every moment is captivating, this uplifting tale shows how ideas can transform lives.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-951933-82-1
Page Count: 238
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: March 25, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
Hoover is one of the freshest voices in new-adult fiction, and her latest resonates with true emotion, unforgettable...
Sydney and Ridge make beautiful music together in a love triangle written by Hoover (Losing Hope, 2013, etc.), with a link to a digital soundtrack by American Idol contestant Griffin Peterson.
Hoover is a master at writing scenes from dual perspectives. While music student Sydney is watching her neighbor Ridge play guitar on his balcony across the courtyard, Ridge is watching Sydney’s boyfriend, Hunter, secretly make out with her best friend on her balcony. The two begin a songwriting partnership that grows into something more once Sydney dumps Hunter and decides to crash with Ridge and his two roommates while she gets back on her feet. She finds out after the fact that Ridge already has a long-distance girlfriend, Maggie—and that he's deaf. Ridge’s deafness doesn’t impede their relationship or their music. In fact, it creates opportunities for sexy nonverbal communication and witty text messages: Ridge tenderly washes off a message he wrote on Sydney’s hand in ink, and when Sydney adds a few too many e’s to the word “squee” in her text, Ridge replies, “If those letters really make up a sound, I am so, so glad I can’t hear it.” While they fight their mutual attraction, their hope that “maybe someday” they can be together playfully comes out in their music. Peterson’s eight original songs flesh out Sydney’s lyrics with a good mix of moody musical styles: “Living a Lie” has the drama of a Coldplay piano ballad, while the chorus of “Maybe Someday” marches to the rhythm of the Lumineers. But Ridge’s lingering feelings for Maggie cause heartache for all three of them. Independent Maggie never complains about Ridge’s friendship with Sydney, and it's hard to even want Ridge to leave Maggie when she reveals her devastating secret. But Ridge can’t hide his feelings for Sydney long—and they face their dilemma with refreshing emotional honesty.
Hoover is one of the freshest voices in new-adult fiction, and her latest resonates with true emotion, unforgettable characters and just the right amount of sexual tension.Pub Date: March 18, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4767-5316-4
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 6, 2014
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