While the storytelling can be confusing at times, this adventure offers a realistic, brutal look at the tumultuous war in...
A novel about the darkness of war as seen through a soldier’s eyes as he battles not only his daily routines but for his own sense of humanity.
In Iraq, soldier Thomas Edington feels he can’t get clean. It’s more than just the greasy water, which seems to leave a film between his skin and clothing. It goes beyond the blistering heat and the ubiquitous dust that coats his body from the moment he towels off. There’s also the realization that he is not safe and that his life can, and probably will, end without any warning. Things a normal man takes for granted—a warm meal, a comfortable bed, a loving wife—fade away as Edington does his daily rounds in this war-torn land. He’s in the middle of a war where suicide bombings are frequent; the young boy that begs you for change could end up killing you; and sleep, or even a few hours off for rest and relaxation, is difficult. Most of the story feels like a dream, told with flashbacks and short bursts of action, and readers will sympathize with Edington’s precarious situation. The narrative never feels stable; it veers in multiple directions as people are introduced and then disappear without much explanation. While this makes the story somewhat challenging to follow, readers can only imagine that soldiers in today’s modern wars must feel somewhat similar—confused and scatterbrained. Yet Edington remains a constant, and his voice holds the chapters together despite their dissonance. He, too, is struck by how strange his situation is, and he wonders whether his emotional reactions are appropriate, as when Edington sees a market bombed, resulting in horrifying deaths: “Thoughts of how many innocent people had just been killed hung heavy on his mind. When his team drove through the market moments ago, hundreds of people stood crowding together in the square. However, part of him was slapping high-fives to himself for just surviving the attack.”
While the storytelling can be confusing at times, this adventure offers a realistic, brutal look at the tumultuous war in Iraq.Pub Date: April 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-1481736374
Page Count: 246
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2013
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
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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