A book that’s far more interesting for its insights into Roman history than for its style or storytelling.
Young lawyer Julius Caesar takes on an impossible case that threatens to end his career and his life.
“They chose you because you are, by far, the lesser man, the lesser orator. Because you don’t know what to say or when to say it.” Thus says the great Roman orator Cicero to 23-year-old Julius Caesar, who’s competing against him to be selected to prosecute a case. Thanks to hindsight, we know Cicero’s assessment couldn’t be more wrong, but Posteguillo takes us back to a moment long before Caesar was undisputed master of the world. Though it’s easy now to say Caesar was destined for greatness, Posteguillo shows his fate was far from certain. Caesar is chosen over Cicero to prosecute the corrupt former Macedonian governor Gnaeus Cornelius Dolabella, and it’s an impossible situation. Though clearly guilty of plunder and rape, Dolabella is a favorite of Roman dictator Sulla and a member of the optimates, an exclusive group in the Roman Senate unwilling to concede power to anyone, especially a young upstart from a lower-level patrician family. The novel traces the history leading up to Dolabella’s trial in 77 B.C.E. and depicts the hidden grudges and motives behind the efforts to ensure Caesar’s defeat. The author describes invading barbarian armies in Gaul, rebellions in Greece, and the brutal silencing of anyone brave enough to speak the truth. He also shows us the hypocrisy of a society that embraced high ideals but accepted violence as part of the political process. What hampers the story is a plodding narrative style and the author’s penchant for cliffhangers that seem better suited for TV. He puts too much potted history in his characters’ mouths, too much language that seems unrealistic or verging on the soap operatic. And yet, at other times, his writing has a strikingly contemporary sound, especially when Caesar makes his closing argument in the trial: “We may call our form of government a ‘democracy,’ but to truly be democratic, our laws, as Pericles points out, must defend the interests not of the very few, but of the majority.” Posteguillo’s story is a reminder that, though more than 2,000 years separate us from ancient Rome, some conflicts haven’t changed.
A book that’s far more interesting for its insights into Roman history than for its style or storytelling.Pub Date: March 5, 2024
ISBN: 9780593598047
Page Count: 624
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2024
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
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.
A high school senior pursues an affair with her teacher.
Seventeen-year-old Waldo, the narrator of McCurdy’s fiction debut, lives in Anchorage, Alaska, with her mother, though she’s long been the parent in their relationship. She heats her own frozen meals and pays the bills on time while her mom chases man after man and makes well-meaning promises she never keeps. Waldo blows her Victoria’s Secret wages on online shopping sprees and binges on junk food, inevitably crashing after the fleeting highs of her indulgences. Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher, has “thinning hair and nose pores”; he’s 40 years old and married with a child. Nevertheless—or possibly as a result?—Waldo’s attraction to him is “instant. So sudden it’s alarming. So palpable it’s confusing.” Mr. Korgy professes to want to keep their friendship aboveboard, but after a sexual encounter at the school’s winter formal that she initiates, an affair begins. Will this reckless pursuit be the one that actually satisfies Waldo, and is she as mature as she thinks she is? Waldo is a keen observer of people and provides sharp commentary on the punishing work of female beauty. Readers of McCurdy’s bestselling memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died (2022), will surely be curious about the tumultuous mother-daughter relationship, and it is one of the novel’s highlights, full of realistic pity and anger and need. (“I want to scream at her. I want her to hug me.”) Unfortunately, the prose is often unwieldy and sometimes downright cringeworthy: When Waldo tells Mr. Korgy she loves him, “The words hang in the air in that constipated way they do when you know that you shouldn’t have said them.” Waldo frequently lists emotions and adjectives in triplicate, and events that could be significant aren’t sufficiently explored or given enough space to breathe before the novel races on to the next thing.
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593723739
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
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