An unsettling and ultimately memorable modern-day hybrid of religious fiction and Romeo and Juliet.
In Hill’s debut novel, a Christian girl and a Muslim boy face some exceptional obstacles on their road to high school romance.
When Dr. Najib Al-Deayea decides to move his family from a small Michigan city to a town 90 minutes from Atlanta, his young son Aazim accepts the change philosophically (“He believed that his situation must be Allah’s way of testing him and shaping him into a stronger man”). He’s an outcast at first, until he meets Dee, the daughter of his father’s new partner and as devout a Christian as Aazim is a Muslim. The two are wary of each other, but as the bullying Aazim experiences grows more severe, Dee is pushed by both her outraged father and her own developing conscience to stand up for Aazim. She begins to like him. The two are equally passionate students in Bible class, but it’s only when Aazim teaches himself the new language of Facebook (and begins to condition his body with martial arts) that the two really connect and fall for each other. “This will not be easy,” Aazim tells Dee, but although they meet with some good-natured resistance from their parents, the real problem isn’t domestic; it’s divine. Just as their relationship is beginning to blossom, the rapture happens. Dee is assumed into heaven, and Aazim is left back on Earth. Hill’s narrative, which had to this point been extremely sensitive and gentle, becomes at once much funnier and much more serious: Dee discovers that she can still keep in touch with Aazim through Facebook (hilariously, the first thing she does when she finds herself in heaven is reach for her cellphone), and in the book’s second half, the two exchange increasingly agonized messages that bring their one love and their two faiths into direct conflict, since as long as Aazim remains true to Islam, they can never be together. The book’s ending is starkly fundamentalist Christian in its assertions, and it won’t be just Muslim readers who might find the story’s final twist shocking or even offensive.
An unsettling and ultimately memorable modern-day hybrid of religious fiction and Romeo and Juliet.Pub Date: May 16, 2012
ISBN: 978-1475156065
Page Count: 122
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 24, 2013
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 touching novel about loss with a magical and mystical flourish.
A young man helps the living and dead meet one last time under the full moon.
Japanese bestseller Tsujimura’s quiet novel follows a mysterious teenager known as the go-between, who can set up meetings between the living and the dead. An introverted woman wants to meet the television star with whom she has a parasocial relationship. A cynical eldest son hopes to visit his mother about their family business. A devastated high schooler fears she is responsible for her friend’s tragic death. And, finally, a middle-aged workaholic finally feels ready to find out if his fiancée, who disappeared seven years ago, is dead. Each character has a uniquely personal reason for seeking out the deceased, including closure and forgiveness, as well as selfishness and fear. Imbued with magic and the perfect amount of gravitas, there are many rules around these meetings: Only the living can make requests and they can only have one meeting per lifetime. Additionally, the dead can deny a meeting—and, most importantly, once the dead person has met with a living person, they will be gone forever. With secrets shared, confessions made, and regrets cemented, these meetings lead to joy and sorrow in equal measure. In the final chapter, all of these visits—and their importance in the go-between’s life—begin to gracefully converge. As we learn the go-between’s identity, we watch him struggle with the magnitude and gravity of his work. At one point, he asks: “When a life was lost, who did it belong to? What were those left behind meant to do with the incomprehensible, inescapable loss?” Though the story can be repetitive, Tsujimura raises poignant and powerful questions about what the living owe not only the dead, but each other; and how we make peace with others and ourselves in the wake of overwhelming grief.
A touching novel about loss with a magical and mystical flourish.Pub Date: Aug. 26, 2025
ISBN: 9781668099834
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2025
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