A psychological mystery whose solution resides in self-discovery.
A tightly wound, forcefully lyrical debut novel by an award-winning Dutch poet.
Sixteen-year-old Salomé Atabong has put herself in a vexing corner. The daughter of a Cameroonian father and a Dutch mother, she’s serving a six-month sentence in a juvenile detention center (nicknamed “the Donut”) for a violent crime whose particulars are gradually disclosed. Whatever she’s done, Salomé shows no remorse for it, which exasperates not only her parents, but also the Donut staff, particularly Frits van Gestel, a white therapist who became notorious for making a condescending remark about “primitive life here in Africa” while appearing on TV. As far as Salomé is concerned, this makes Frits unworthy of her respect. “I know full well I’m not well,” she says, but she’s “not going to be helped by some fucking racist.” Frits nonetheless keeps trying to break through Salomé’s belligerence, which also rubs some of the other inmates the wrong way. Her refusal to even acknowledge the act that got her locked up parallels the novel’s insistence on withholding specifics of that act. But the book does weave in pertinent details about Salomé’s family, including her father, mother, sister, and aunt. Through her often-tumultuous day-to-day life at the Donut, her memories of family visits to Africa, and her coming to grips with her actions and their consequences, Salomé finds herself slowly, if grudgingly, approaching the basis of her constant anger. The whole novel comes across like a clenched fist resisting every impulse to open up, and one wonders if this unrelenting intensity might work against the possibility of its becoming one of those life-transforming novels about alienated youth in the tradition of The Catcher in the Rye. But no matter how tense things get, you somehow stay with Salomé’s pursuit of her goal: to locate “the Salomé who’s made off with all my luck, and find a way to get to her.”
A psychological mystery whose solution resides in self-discovery.Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781639730919
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2023
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 debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.
A high school senior pursues an affair with her teacher.
Seventeen-year-old Waldo, the narrator of McCurdy’s fiction debut, lives in Anchorage, Alaska, with her mother, though she’s long been the parent in their relationship. She heats her own frozen meals and pays the bills on time while her mom chases man after man and makes well-meaning promises she never keeps. Waldo blows her Victoria’s Secret wages on online shopping sprees and binges on junk food, inevitably crashing after the fleeting highs of her indulgences. Mr. Korgy, her creative writing teacher, has “thinning hair and nose pores”; he’s 40 years old and married with a child. Nevertheless—or possibly as a result?—Waldo’s attraction to him is “instant. So sudden it’s alarming. So palpable it’s confusing.” Mr. Korgy professes to want to keep their friendship aboveboard, but after a sexual encounter at the school’s winter formal that she initiates, an affair begins. Will this reckless pursuit be the one that actually satisfies Waldo, and is she as mature as she thinks she is? Waldo is a keen observer of people and provides sharp commentary on the punishing work of female beauty. Readers of McCurdy’s bestselling memoir, I’m Glad My Mom Died (2022), will surely be curious about the tumultuous mother-daughter relationship, and it is one of the novel’s highlights, full of realistic pity and anger and need. (“I want to scream at her. I want her to hug me.”) Unfortunately, the prose is often unwieldy and sometimes downright cringeworthy: When Waldo tells Mr. Korgy she loves him, “The words hang in the air in that constipated way they do when you know that you shouldn’t have said them.” Waldo frequently lists emotions and adjectives in triplicate, and events that could be significant aren’t sufficiently explored or given enough space to breathe before the novel races on to the next thing.
A debut novel with bright spots, but unbalanced and lacking in finesse.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2026
ISBN: 9780593723739
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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