by Tony Vigorito ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A
A boy-meets-girl tale that veers into strange avenues and offers a maelstrom of love-struck possibilities.
Vigorito (Just a Couple of Days, 2015, etc.) details a modern-day love story and its links to the past.
When Merlin Otherwise and Lila Louise first kiss, it is on top of a float in an illegal parade in San Francisco. It is Halloween, and both are dressed as pirates. “We’ve met before, I’m certain,” Merlin tells Lila as their romance instantly blossoms. And while it initially seems merely a cheeky pickup line, it may very well hold some truth. Flashing back to the 18th century, the reader is introduced to two real pirates. Flaming Jane and Crow are swashbucklers of the high seas who, though lawless in their own ways, are not “toothless and swill-sipping” scoundrels. Flaming Jane is an educated woman who “defied her proper place as the property of her admiral husband,” while Crow is an autodidact who relishes the “relative quietude and isolation” of the ship’s crow’s nest. As a plot develops around a search for the “treasure of all treasures,” connections are increasingly made between the past and the present. But can Merlin and Lila’s relationship endure the ongoing existential crisis that is life in the 21st century? What about Jane and Crow’s ability to master the life of outlaws on the high seas? While the protagonists and their goals are essentially clear, the novel is at its best when exploring supporting characters. Whether it is Lila’s pooch, Dogface, a “Tanzanian zebra shepherd” capable of licking herself into “auto-cunnilingual leg spasms,” or an ex-boyfriend, the dubiously named guru Ivan Humble (of whom much can be, and is, explained), the true peculiarities of interest tend to arise in the background. Readers eager to hear young, antihero, Tom Robbins–esque lovers declare their adoration for each other will certainly find contentment within these pages. For those less intrigued by spunky love birds who insist “life is performance art” (as Merlin and Lila concur), all is not lost. What helps to set the story apart from similar fare are the nuanced, often unexpected villains, animals, and biblical allusions along the way.
A boy-meets-girl tale that veers into strange avenues and offers a maelstrom of love-struck possibilities.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: Dec. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Share your opinion of this book
by Colleen Hoover ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 2, 2016
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of...
Awards & Accolades
Likes
383
Our Verdict
GET IT
New York Times Bestseller
IndieBound Bestseller
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
Share your opinion of this book
More by Colleen Hoover
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
More About This Book
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
by Claire Lombardo ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 25, 2019
Characters flip between bottomless self-regard and pitiless self-loathing while, as late as the second-to-last chapter, yet...
Four Chicago sisters anchor a sharp, sly family story of feminine guile and guilt.
Newcomer Lombardo brews all seven deadly sins into a fun and brimming tale of an unapologetically bougie couple and their unruly daughters. In the opening scene, Liza Sorenson, daughter No. 3, flirts with a groomsman at her sister’s wedding. “There’s four of you?” he asked. “What’s that like?” Her retort: “It’s a vast hormonal hellscape. A marathon of instability and hair products.” Thus begins a story bristling with a particular kind of female intel. When Wendy, the oldest, sets her sights on a mate, she “made sure she left her mark throughout his house—soy milk in the fridge, box of tampons under the sink, surreptitious spritzes of her Bulgari musk on the sheets.” Turbulent Wendy is the novel’s best character, exuding a delectable bratty-ness. The parents—Marilyn, all pluck and busy optimism, and David, a genial family doctor—strike their offspring as impossibly happy. Lombardo levels this vision by interspersing chapters of the Sorenson parents’ early lean times with chapters about their daughters’ wobbly forays into adulthood. The central story unfurls over a single event-choked year, begun by Wendy, who unlatches a closed adoption and springs on her family the boy her stuffy married sister, Violet, gave away 15 years earlier. (The sisters improbably kept David and Marilyn clueless with a phony study-abroad scheme.) Into this churn, Lombardo adds cancer, infidelity, a heart attack, another unplanned pregnancy, a stillbirth, and an office crush for David. Meanwhile, youngest daughter Grace perpetrates a whopper, and “every day the lie was growing like mold, furring her judgment.” The writing here is silky, if occasionally overwrought. Still, the deft touches—a neighborhood fundraiser for a Little Free Library, a Twilight character as erotic touchstone—delight. The class calibrations are divine even as the utter apolitical whiteness of the Sorenson world becomes hard to fathom.
Characters flip between bottomless self-regard and pitiless self-loathing while, as late as the second-to-last chapter, yet another pleasurable tendril of sisterly malice uncurls.Pub Date: June 25, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54425-2
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
Share your opinion of this book
More About This Book
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.