This ambitious tale involving a bizarre metamorphosis struggles to find a relatable worldview.
A Colorado woman deals with a surreal identity change in this novel.
Sheila is a 44-year-old single mom who lives near Molybdenum Mountain Ski Resort, where she works in the transportation department. But in the book’s first chapter, Sheila undergoes a dramatic change: An alien light appears while she’s alone in the resort garage and offers her one wish. Before she can decide on an answer, she’s abruptly turned into a male silverback mountain gorilla. Flummoxed and still possessing her human mind and speech capabilities, Sheila reaches out to her co-worker (and occasional fling) Kurt, who eventually overcomes his shock to help her get home. The resort has hired a team of trained gorillas managed by humans who communicate with them through sign language to install a new ski lift before winter. Sheila attempts to blend in with the crew while Kurt, her friend Blaise, her psychoanalyst, Roger, and her son, Peter, are brought into the loop one by one to try to understand what’s happened. Sheila, meanwhile, eventually realizes she’s not the only gorilla in the group who used to be human. The pressing issue of whether she should live in the human world or the animal one becomes more urgent when she and the other gorillas are moved to the zoo and face the possibility of eventual transport to Africa. This tale presents a powerful premise, and it’s at its most effective when Sheila struggles to reconcile her gorilla identity with her human one. But surreal premises work best when characters’ emotional landscapes remain consistent and relatable. Unfortunately, players here tend to react unpredictably and irrationally. Sheila wrestles a frightened Kurt to the ground and kisses him in a playful attempt to flirt—while she’s a gorilla. And no one at the resort seems to stop to count the free-range gorillas while they’re working. Characters often spout a simple “Wow” when discussing mind-shattering events. Metzger’s (Two Boys, 2013) book is interested in gender identity—many characters speculate Sheila transformed because of an unconscious desire to be male. But in light of her also changing species, repeated focus on the gender swap seems beside the point.
This ambitious tale involving a bizarre metamorphosis struggles to find a relatable worldview.Pub Date: July 27, 2013
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 446
Publisher: Owl of Athene Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 16, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of...
Hoover’s (November 9, 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.
At first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers; Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. Lily swears she’ll never end up in another abusive home, but when Ryle starts to show all the same warning signs that her mother ignored, Lily learns just how hard it is to say goodbye. When Ryle is not in the throes of a jealous rage, his redeeming qualities return, and Lily can justify his behavior: “I think we needed what happened on the stairwell to happen so that I would know his past and we’d be able to work on it together,” she tells herself. Lily marries Ryle hoping the good will outweigh the bad, and the mother-daughter dynamics evolve beautifully as Lily reflects on her childhood with fresh eyes. Diary entries fancifully addressed to TV host Ellen DeGeneres serve as flashbacks to Lily’s teenage years, when she met her first love, Atlas Corrigan, a homeless boy she found squatting in a neighbor’s house. When Atlas turns up in Boston, now a successful chef, he begs Lily to leave Ryle. Despite the better option right in front of her, an unexpected complication forces Lily to cut ties with Atlas, confront Ryle, and try to end the cycle of abuse before it’s too late. The relationships are portrayed with compassion and honesty, and the author’s note at the end that explains Hoover’s personal connection to the subject matter is a must-read.
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of the survivors.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1036-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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