An intense bag of horror goodies, fortified by strong female protagonists.
A family encounters strange people and even stranger creatures during a nightmarish summer vacation in this debut novel.
The Nunios family getaway may not be relaxing for 16-year-old Alison. It means close quarters with her shiftless older brother and fresh high school graduate, Michael, and her constantly feuding parents. Luckily, best friend Olivia’s along for the trip, though her company’s a persistent reminder that, with Olivia’s family moving, the two will be separated for the upcoming school year. Cape November is nostalgic for Alison’s parents, who recall visiting the place in their youth and hearing the local legend of Cappy the sea monster. But bizarre occurrences start before they’ve reached Cape November; the minivan apparently hits something, and stopping to check an object lying in the road leads to an attack from a giant bird and biting insects. Their hotel in the Cape, meanwhile, is the spooky Maggie’s Mansion, where they’re awakened by a scream in the dark. None of this, however, prepares them for a town of hooded figures and creepy kids with sharp sticks. There are stories of missing residents, which may soon include Alison’s mysteriously absent parents or the teen herself. Favetta saves most of the horrors for later, wisely spending the first half of the eerie tale developing characters. Alison, for one, who’s smart but sometimes condescending (derisively dubbing Michael a “genius”), is fittingly counterbalanced by astute and empathetic Olivia. Romance, too, is understated: Olivia’s openly gay, while Alison’s clearly attracted to her but seems conflicted. The author drops hints of what’s coming: pictures of a tentacled beast and Olivia seeing hooded men menacingly approach the minivan. The potent final act is best left unspoiled, but entails otherworldly creatures, visceral death, and shades of H.P. Lovecraft. Formidable Alison and Olivia bolster a feminist theme, prevalent in keen, self-deprecating dialogue: when Alison fears that fleeing makes them look like scared girls, Olivia remarks, “We are a couple of scared girls.”
An intense bag of horror goodies, fortified by strong female protagonists.Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9972024-3-4
Page Count: 340
Publisher: Can't Put It Down Books
Review Posted Online: May 3, 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
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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