by Sharon Neiss-Arbess ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 5, 2023
A fashionista fantasy in an ode to female independence.
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Two young women face antisemitism and forge a friendship while working in an elegant Montreal department store in Neiss-Arbess’ novel.
When Vivian Steiner, the fashion-obsessed 17-year-old daughter of two Jewish Polish immigrants, goes to work as a salesgirl in the cosmetics department of Sunderland’s Department Store, she is fulfilling her dream of surrounding herself with beautiful clothing and sundries, all waiting for her to pull them together in perfect combinations of color, texture, and style. It’s 1942, the same year that Lilly Krovchick, the fifth child of her Jewish Russian immigrant mother, meets the handsome Jewish doctor she’ll marry right out of high school. Marriage to a respected professional with a stable career offers Lilly the promise of security. Unfortunately, the doctor (to whom the author intentionally denies a name) turns out to be abusive. After giving birth to three children, Lilly divorces him, and she must now support her young brood; she needs a job. Meanwhile, Vivian has become Sunderland’s most sought-after cosmetician, an expert at choosing the perfect makeup combinations for her customers. In a moment of serendipity, the two women meet, and Vivian encourages Lilly to apply for a sales position at the store. It’s the beginning of a friendship that will span the following decades, although it becomes seriously compromised. Despite dealing with a variety of potent themes (including antisemitism, misogyny, bullying, career disappointment, and the joys and challenges of friendship), Neiss-Arbess’ prose has a buoyant touch, a tone that is set in her opening descriptions of the magic and excitement upon entering a luxe department store (she includes a plethora of minutiae about fashion coordination, and a genuinely funny scene when the young women capture a shoplifter). There are a few narrative glitches, such as some anachronistic terminology such as Ms.and pantyhose. But the overall message is positive: “You keep going on your own path. Get your goal. Ignore all that interfere.”
A fashionista fantasy in an ode to female independence.Pub Date: Dec. 5, 2023
ISBN: 9781738945245
Page Count: 300
Publisher: re:books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 6, 2024
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
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New York Times Bestseller
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
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by Sally Rooney ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 24, 2024
Though not perfect, a clear leap forward for Rooney; her grandmaster status remains intact.
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Two brothers—one a lawyer, one a chess prodigy—work through the death of their father, their complicated romantic lives, and their even more tangled relationship with each other.
Ten years separate the Koubek brothers. In his early 30s, Peter has turned his past as a university debating champ into a career as a progressive lawyer in Dublin. Ivan is just out of college, struggling to make ends meet through freelance data analysis and reckoning with his recent free fall in the world chess rankings. When their father dies of cancer, the cracks in the brothers’ relationship widen. “Complete oddball” Ivan falls in love with an older woman, an arts center employee, which freaks Peter out. Peter juggles two women at once: free-spirited college student Naomi and his ex-girlfriend Sylvia, whose life has changed drastically since a car accident left her in chronic pain. Emotional chaos abounds. Rooney has struck a satisfying blend of the things she’s best at—sensitively rendered characters, intimacies, consideration of social and philosophical issues—with newer moves. Having the book’s protagonists navigating a familial rather than romantic relationship seems a natural next step for Rooney, with her astutely empathic perception, and the sections from Peter’s point of view show Rooney pushing her style into new territory with clipped, fragmented, almost impressionistic sentences. (Peter on Sylvia: “Must wonder what he’s really here for: repentance, maybe. Bless me for I have. Not like that, he wants to tell her. Why then. Terror of solitude.”) The risk: Peter comes across as a slightly blurry character, even to himself—he’s no match for the indelible Ivan—so readers may find these sections less propulsive at best or over-stylized at worst. Overall, though, the pages still fly; the characters remain reach-out-and-touch-them real.
Though not perfect, a clear leap forward for Rooney; her grandmaster status remains intact.Pub Date: Sept. 24, 2024
ISBN: 9780374602635
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2024
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