A novel for those who like their grimness unadulterated by any glimmer of redemption.
Two high school friends fall into a rite of poisonous passage toward toxic masculinity in this debut novel.
Adam and Teddy have a complicated relationship, both complementary and competitive. Adam is the leader, yet also a loner, with Teddy his only follower. Adam lives in a world of video games and internet conspiracies; he’s likely an incel, though that’s not a term the novel uses. The narrative refers to them as "boys-or-men,” but it’s unclear whether this is how they think of themselves. Psychological perspective is tricky throughout the narrative, because the novel spends plenty of time inside one or the other of their heads, switching back and forth, while some of the insights might seem to transcend the maturity of either. Neither comes from a happy home, and there is no evidence in the novel that any man and woman can have an enduring, enriching relationship. Teddy has other friends, even a girlfriend, but he somehow needs Adam—needs his nerve, his impulsiveness, but perhaps mostly needs him because Adam has a driver’s license and Teddy does not. Adam persuades Teddy to hit the road and leave their homes forever. Teddy convinces Adam that they should buy a rifle, which, sure as Chekhov, will prove pivotal. (It’s Teddy who has this license.) The titular passenger seat is Teddy’s, though they will eventually switch off. As Adam asks himself, “What would either of them be without the other to define him?” Even with each other, just who are they and where are they going? Their pilgrimage seems to carry the weight of modern masculinity on its shoulders, without any lightening of warmth or humor. A coda focusing on two other friends, middle-aged and purposeless, suggests that the going doesn’t get any easier once boys become men.
A novel for those who like their grimness unadulterated by any glimmer of redemption.Pub Date: March 4, 2025
ISBN: 9781771966306
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Biblioasis
Review Posted Online: Dec. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.
Three women deal very differently with vampirism in Schwab’s era-spanning follow-up to The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (2020).
In 16th-century Spain, Maria seduces a wealthy viscount in an attempt to seize whatever control she can over her own life. It turns out that being a wife—even a wealthy one—is just another cage, but then a mysterious widow offers Maria a surprising escape route. In the 19th century, Charlotte is sent from her home in the English countryside to live with an aunt in London when she’s found trying to kiss her best friend. She’s despondent at the idea of marrying a man, but another mysterious widow—who has a secret connection to Maria’s widow from centuries earlier—appears and teaches Charlotte that she can be free to love whomever she chooses, if she’s brave enough. In 2019, Alice’s memories of growing up in Scotland with her mercurial older sister, Catty, pull her mind away from her first days at Harvard University. And though she doesn’t meet any mysterious widows, Alice wakes up alone after a one-night stand unable to tolerate sunlight, sporting two new fangs, and desperate to drink blood. Horrified at her transformation, she searches Boston for her hookup, who was the last person she remembers seeing before she woke up as a vampire. Schwab delicately intertwines the three storylines, which are compelling individually even before the reader knows how they will connect. Maria, Charlotte, and Alice are queer women searching for love, recognition, and wholeness, growing fangs and defying mortality in a world that would deny them their very existence. Alice’s flashbacks to Catty are particularly moving, and subtly play off themes of grief and loneliness laid out in the historical timelines.
A beautiful meditation on queer identity against a supernatural backdrop.Pub Date: June 10, 2025
ISBN: 9781250320520
Page Count: 544
Publisher: Tor
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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PERSPECTIVES
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
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