An uninspired snapshot of the country’s current moment.
In Duffy’s sequel to Stockboy (2013), Phillip Doherty works at a novelty store again and feels torn between the East and West coasts—and between two different women.
As this novel opens, Phillip is despondent. His second book was a critical success but a commercial failure and he and his fiancee, Melissa, are having relationship problems, in part, due to financial strain. She works tenaciously at her job, but Phillip struggles to find a position. He eventually resigns himself to working, again, as a stockboy at Milton’s World of Fun—this time in San Diego instead of New York. As the pressures of everyday life build, Phillip finds himself looking at online-dating websites and becomes enamored with a teacher named LeAnn Kennedy. Melissa and Phillip soon agree to separate, and Phillip then decides to drive to New York to start his life over despite Californian LeAnn’s romantic overtures. Almost as soon as Phillip arrives, an unnamed virus strikes the country, causing closures and layoffs in the city and elsewhere. Lonely Phillip finds his heart pulled back to San Diego by both Melissa and LeAnn. Duffy traverses a lot of ground in this novel. By effectively setting the action duringthe current Covid-19 pandemic, Duffy offers intriguing insights into the plight of workers deemed essential or nonessential as well as the measures businesses take as they struggle to stay afloat. However, the prose feels flabby and polemic. Characters discuss how the country has become a “stockboy nation” because, as Phillip says, “We’re a bunch of people peddling items other people created to make money to survive.” The repetition cements Duffy’s point but does nothing to develop the argument further. The dialogue is often stilted and unnecessarily expository, and although Duffy provides glimpses of Melissa’s and LeAnn’s inner lives, the focus largely remains on Phillip, who’s often passive and indecisive. When Phillip receives a visit in the latter part of the novel, it’s a pleasant surprise, but it doesn’t affect him very much as a character.
An uninspired snapshot of the country’s current moment.Pub Date: June 11, 2020
ISBN: 979-8-65-007277-5
Page Count: 261
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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 dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.
A struggling writer finds an unexpected muse when a mysterious man shows up at her cabin.
Petra Rose used to pump out a bestselling book every six months, but then the adaptation happened—that is, the disastrous film adaptation of her most famous book. The movie changed the book’s storyline so egregiously that fans couldn’t forgive her, and the ensuing harassment sent Petra into hiding and gave her a serious case of writer’s block. Petra’s one hope is her solo writing retreat at a remote cabin, where she can escape the distractions of real life and focus on her next book, a story about a woman having an affair with a cop. When officer Nathaniel Saint shows up at her cabin door, inspiration comes flooding back. Much like the character from Petra’s book, Saint is married, and he’s willing to be Petra’s muse, helping her get into her characters’ heads. Petra’s book is practically writing itself, but is the game she’s playing a little too dangerous? Does she know when to stop—and, more importantly, is Saint willing to stop? Hoover is no stranger to controversial movie adaptations and internet backlash, but she clarifies in a note to readers that she’s “just a writer writing about a writer” and that no further connections to her own life are contained in these pages—which is a good thing, because the book takes some horrifying twists and turns. Petra finds herself inexplicably attracted to Saint, even as she describes him as “such an asshole,” and her feelings for him veer between love and hate. The novel serves as a meta commentary on the dark romance genre—as Petra puts it, “Even though, as readers, we wouldn’t want to live out some of the fantasies we read about, it doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy reading those things.”
A dark and twisty look at just how far one woman is willing to go to find inspiration.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: 9781662539374
Page Count: -
Publisher: Montlake
Review Posted Online: Sept. 27, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2025
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