A set of skillfully written and thought-provoking tales.
This collection of 11 stories explores the ways that people approach their personal relationships.
Ruckus, the author of Princess Rouran and the Book of the Living (2022), among other books, presents a masterful set of tales that illuminate everyday details of life and the meaning of personal connection. “Three and a Half White Roses” tells of a woman involved with a man who’s more concerned with his own intellectual superiority than her emotional well-being. “Life Is Short” ably illustrates its title when Alex, a young man, has a close friendship with co-worker Jacks that almost turns into a romance—but a social fumble threatens the fragile connection. Both stories show the vulnerability of early romantic affection with honesty, and a similar dynamic in familial relationships is reflected well in other tales. “Silent Disco,” for example, features a man navigating a strained relationship with his father after coming out as gay; “A Good Cry” effectively shows how certain people can become meaningful in one’s life through random circumstance; it tells the story of a man moving in with roommates while attending university. “A Purple Cat Got My Tongue” is a perfect title for a tale about a man who becomes voiceless after seeing a dead feline and then tries to find ways to connect with people without spoken words. “A Lady Who Parked a Whale Outside My Balcony” is possibly the collection’s best piece, as it uses speculative elements to construct an affecting story of a man’s connection with a brokenhearted spirit: “ ‘Do you wonder why London has so little sunshine?’ She sat on the railing and gave a faint smile. ‘Perhaps because all those capable of laughter died two hundred years ago.’ ” Overall, Ruckus’ sparse, minimalist writing style is succinct and to the point, employing small details to illustrate a bigger picture.
A set of skillfully written and thought-provoking tales.Pub Date: April 7, 2023
ISBN: 9781915338945
Page Count: 103
Publisher: UK Book Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
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
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