A fun, if talky, tale of an endearing May-December friendship.
A widower and a teenager set off on an important road trip together in Semegran’s contemporary novel.
In Austin, Texas, 65-year-old Hank O’Sullivan spends a lot of time at his favorite local bar drinking away his loneliness after losing his wife and daughter in a car accident. In a parking lot scuffle outside a bar, Hank fights back in self-defense and earns himself a court-mandated sentence of 40 hours of community service. It’s there, while cleaning up trash on the side of the highway, he meets 16-year-old Luis Delgado, a Puerto Rican boy serving his own community service hours after being caught trespassing. Luis, a talented artist, lives with his father in the same neighborhood as Hank. After Luis and Hank form an unlikely friendship, Luis finds out Hank plans to visit Houston to reignite an old high school romance and asks if he can tag along to reconnect with his estranged mother, who also lives in Houston and who Luis hasn’t heard from since he was young. In a hot pink 1970 Plymouth Barracuda, the duo embarks on a road trip filled with drama, car troubles, a lesson in map reading, and lots of waffles. Semegran proficiently shifts between Hank’s and Luis’ points of view, which helps both characters feel fleshed out. An overuse of description can sometimes slow the pacing (“He set the bag on the carpet, then put his shoes on—the black wool sock on his right foot with a hole in it for his big toe to receive fresh air, the cotton sock on the left the shade of coffee with heavy cream”), but the unique relationship between the two unlikely, sympathetic pals keeps the story rolling.
A fun, if talky, tale of an endearing May-December friendship.Pub Date: March 22, 2024
ISBN: 9780875658681
Page Count: 224
Publisher: TCU Press
Review Posted Online: May 31, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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