An ambitious but discordant mix of genres.
A chick-lit thriller that draws on old children’s songs for inspiration.
In the popular playground rhyme “Miss Susie,” each line seems as if it will finish with an offensive word before it abruptly and humorously changes. This ying and yang of foul and funny permeates Kreps’ debut novel about “a party girl” whose life is tangled up with concepts from similar kidcentric rhymes. Susie, a recent college grad, and Will Johnson (“6’2”, dark hair, sparkling blue eyes, enough definition showing through his t-shirt and jeans to let her know he was an active guy”) meet-cute at lunchtime in a Cleveland park when they both stop at a purse vendor’s table. On a date that night, Will’s behavior is often charming, but he also does things that raise red flags, such as ordering for Susie at a restaurant without asking her what she wants. She ignores further bad omens until she accompanies Will to a remote cabin, at which point this edgy chick-lit novel becomes truly disturbing. There, Will blindfolds Susie, handcuffs her, and takes off her clothes. He also feeds her an ice cream sundae that contains nuts, knowing that she’s deathly allergic to them. Susie manages to escape the cabin, but after the police arrive, Will twists his version of events to make it appear that Susie was accosting him. Ultimately, this novel is cleverly written, and it’s full of credible millennial dialogue. Throughout, Kreps supplies a footnoted playlist of children’s song titles to accompany the story, such as “Found a Peanut” as Will tries to find Susie after she escapes from the cabin; a reference to “The Princess Pat” leads to a description of Susie’s friend Pat seeing “red and gold and purple too” because of the drugs that she’s taken. The resulting confluence of chick-lit, thriller, and storybook elements, though, often feels disjointed and forced. A more linear storyline might have been more beneficial, as the plot sometimes wanders too far away from Susie in order to concentrate on secondary characters.
An ambitious but discordant mix of genres.Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5059-0795-7
Page Count: 218
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 14, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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