A diverse collection of tales that skillfully illustrate various facets of modern life.
People share stories at an unusual gathering in Desai’s novel.
The second installment in Desai’s series picks up right where the initial entry, Bad Americans: Part I (2025), left off. The year is 2020, and Covid-19 is rampant throughout the world. Twelve diverse guests are assembled at the home of a wealthy man named Olive Mixer. It is a reality-show-like setting where people mingle romantically, argue over their differing worldviews, and participate in activities like dodgeball and Family Feud. The main thrust, though, is the stories: Each guest receives an allocated time to address everyone else in the house with a tale (Part 1 covered six guests; this sequel features the remaining six). The attendees include Lisa, tells of a traumatic experience she experienced while in college and the many uncomfortable situations she encountered while working for a Spanish artist, limning an adult life marked by “microaggressions” from men. Khassan has a more fantastical tale about a young Muslim man named Amir, whom he describes as “an utterly incompetent NYU dropout with zero real world experience.” Amir may be incompetent, but he goes on quite an international adventure. The stories are as varied as the characters who tell them: An Indian man named Pritesh spins a yarn about an Indian man in America involved in a love triangle that takes an unexpectedly dark turn; 19-year-old model and social media star Hayley outlines the predatory aspects of being a pretty face on Instagram. While these narratives hold the reader’s interest, the action between the stories is not as stimulating; a bit about horseback riding is no more exciting than it sounds (“Eventually, everyone learned to mount the horse and led by their trainer, were pulled along the plain and then through a small horse show track, avoiding the hurdles and jumps”). Still, the novel proves memorable for its presentation of many distinct points of view.
A diverse collection of tales that skillfully illustrate various facets of modern life.Pub Date: April 15, 2026
ISBN: 9781734727852
Page Count: 447
Publisher: The New Wei LLC
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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