This well-intentioned effort just doesn’t land.
A tween’s arrest throws his Indian American family into disarray.
The latest novel from Gowda starts as it means to go on, with this sentence: “While twelve-year-old Ajay sat trembling in a jail cell, his parents were enjoying themselves at a dinner party.” What follows is a long exploration of racism, classism, and ableism, with the contrasts between the privileged and the less so heightened to a fever pitch. Ajay is a shy boy, the son of Indian immigrants in California, likely autistic with an abiding interest in robots and drones. His brutal arrest, at the hands of an overzealous cop, comes after he flies his prized drone near John Wayne Airport in Orange County. His arrest roils his family: his parents, Priya and Ashok, and his sisters, social-justice-focused Deepa and high school athlete Maya, who are both keeping secrets from their parents. Priya and Ashok live by their own code: “work hard, don’t make waves, keep placing one foot in front of the other on each new rung that appeared before them”; they have trouble squaring that with the possibility that Ajay has been racially profiled. Deepa disdains them for not bothering “to look back at who was left behind.” The novel follows the aftermath of the arrest, as Priya and Ashok enlist a lawyer recommended by a wealthy friend; said friend later is accused of casteism at his company. Gowda’s narration is fast-paced, and she is gifted at building suspense, but the prose sometimes falls flat and the dialogue too often echoes movie cliches. The book is bound to draw comparisons to Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere (2017), but it has more in common with Paul Haggis’ heavy-handed 2004 film, Crash.
This well-intentioned effort just doesn’t land.Pub Date: March 26, 2024
ISBN: 9780063324343
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Mariner Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2024
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
SEEN & HEARD
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.
A love story about a life of second chances.
In Nassau, in the Bahamas, casino detective Vincent LaPorta grills Alfie Logan, who’d come up a winner three times in a row at the roulette table and walked away with $2 million. “How did you do it?” asks the detective. Alfie calmly denies cheating. You wired all the money to a Gianna Rule, LaPorta says. Why? To explain, Alfie produces a composition book with the words “For the Boss, to Be Read Upon My Death” written on the cover. Read this for answers, Alfie suggests, calling it a love story. His mother had passed along to him a strange trait: He can say “Twice!” and go back to a specific time and place to have a do-over. But it only works once for any particular moment, and then he must live with the new consequences. He can only do this for himself and can’t prevent anyone from dying. Alfie regularly uses his power—failing to impress a girl the first time, he finds out more about her, goes back in time, and presto! She likes him. The premise is of course not credible—LaPorta doesn’t buy it either—but it’s intriguing. Most people would probably love to go back and unsay something. The story’s focus is on Alfie’s love for Gianna and whether it’s requited, unrequited, or both. In any case, he’s obsessed with her. He’s a good man, though, an intelligent person with ordinary human failings and a solid moral compass. Albom writes in a warm, easy style that transports the reader to a world of second chances and what-ifs, where spirituality lies close to the surface but never intrudes on the story. Though a cynic will call it sappy, anyone who is sick to their core from the daily news will enjoy this escape from reality.
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780062406682
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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