This slim novel invites us to question the narratives we know and has a rewarding payoff, but is slow-moving.
An Israeli expatriate in Los Angeles reconnects with his aunt-by-marriage and returns to Israel, where secrets from the past resurface.
In a strong translation by Kahn-Hoffmann, Liebrecht portrays the connection between a young Micha and Adella, whom he meets for the first time when he's 9 years old and she's 18 and engaged to his favorite uncle. Micha comes from a big, opinionated Iranian Jewish family that looks down on Adella but he befriends her, and when the wedding plans are made, he is chosen to be her bridesman. In fluid prose, Liebrecht describes how Micha gets to know Adella, becomes fascinated with her, and participates in her wedding. As a young teenager, he relocates to Los Angeles with his mother, and then the chronology jumps ahead; Micha is an adult, working as a ghostwriter in Los Angeles, and Adella has reached out after many years to ask him to come to Israel for an unknown reason. Does she want him to ghostwrite her memoir? And who is this new woman? Adella has become Adel, and there is no trace of the timid, marginalized girl he remembers from his childhood. What ensues is a revelation of long-hidden secrets. Micha is in the business of ghostwriting, of crafting narratives from what he is told is true. But Adel's revelations make Micha revise his own memories of her and of his childhood, thus reminding readers to reexamine the stories we tell. The prose is clean and smooth, and Micha's narration transitions seamlessly from the voice of a young boy to the voice of an adult. Quietly intelligent and carefully written and translated, the novel encourages us to consider the relationship between truth and stories. Unfortunately, the narrative drags a little, and the story is not very compelling until its final shocking twist—which almost, but not quite, makes the rest worthwhile.
This slim novel invites us to question the narratives we know and has a rewarding payoff, but is slow-moving.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781609459864
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.
Character assassination reigns supreme, if not uncontested, in a Long Island suburb.
April Masterson loves her husband, corporate attorney Elliott; their 7-year-old, Bobby; and her YouTube channel, “April’s Sweet Secrets.” What she doesn’t love is whoever’s texting her warnings about how Bobby isn’t really in their backyard while she’s busy filming her videos or withering critiques of her baking show or veiled accusations about her past and threats about her present. Her best friend, former prosecutor Julie Bressler, may be bossy and opinionated, but surely she’d never turn on April this way. Who else might know enough to send April goodies like a picture of her kissing Mark Tanner, Bobby’s soccer coach? Though April struggles to get Elliot to take her ordeal seriously, even when she shows up at his office for a lunch date, he’s protected by his receptionist, Brianna Anderson, whose attachment to her boss goes far beyond loyalty. Then Julie turns on her; Maria Cooper, her friendly new next-door neighbor, turns on her; and in the most mind-boggling scene, Doris Kirkland, April’s mother, whose dementia has brought her to a nursing home, turns on her. McFadden releases an escalating series of toxins so deftly into the suburban atmosphere that it’s practically an anticlimax when someone gets killed and April instantly becomes the prime suspect. But that’s only a setup for the tale’s boldest move: switching its narrator from April to a fair-weather friend who frames the whole nightmare in dramatically different terms. As a special gift to her savviest fans, the author throws in an even more jolting epilogue that’s as hard to forget as it is to believe.
Recommended reading for every paranoid suburbanite who’s considering a move to the city, or to the Arctic wilds.Pub Date: March 3, 2026
ISBN: 9781464249600
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Poisoned Pen
Review Posted Online: Dec. 6, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2026
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.
A woman accused of shooting her husband six times in the face refuses to speak.
"Alicia Berenson was thirty-three years old when she killed her husband. They had been married for seven years. They were both artists—Alicia was a painter, and Gabriel was a well-known fashion photographer." Michaelides' debut is narrated in the voice of psychotherapist Theo Faber, who applies for a job at the institution where Alicia is incarcerated because he's fascinated with her case and believes he will be able to get her to talk. The narration of the increasingly unrealistic events that follow is interwoven with excerpts from Alicia's diary. Ah, yes, the old interwoven diary trick. When you read Alicia's diary you'll conclude the woman could well have been a novelist instead of a painter because it contains page after page of detailed dialogue, scenes, and conversations quite unlike those in any journal you've ever seen. " 'What's the matter?' 'I can't talk about it on the phone, I need to see you.' 'It's just—I'm not sure I can make it up to Cambridge at the minute.' 'I'll come to you. This afternoon. Okay?' Something in Paul's voice made me agree without thinking about it. He sounded desperate. 'Okay. Are you sure you can't tell me about it now?' 'I'll see you later.' Paul hung up." Wouldn't all this appear in a diary as "Paul wouldn't tell me what was wrong"? An even more improbable entry is the one that pins the tail on the killer. While much of the book is clumsy, contrived, and silly, it is while reading passages of the diary that one may actually find oneself laughing out loud.
Amateurish, with a twist savvy readers will see coming from a mile away.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-250-30169-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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