A predominantly traditional ghost story, with enough apparitions to unnerve readers.
A man may prefer the raging snowstorm outside when his refuge turns out to be a mansion that could very well be haunted in this debut supernatural tale.
Adem’s looking forward to a Christmas-weekend visit with his cousin Alp in Boulder, Colorado. The traveler gets a head start to stay in front of the forecasted blizzard but is unfortunately sidetracked by attractive diner waitress Felda. Her offer of a night together is too much for 23-year-old virgin Adem to pass up, delaying his anticipated arrival in Boulder until the following day. He’s barely on the road again when his Impala skids into the forest, the ensuing accident leaving him injured with a crashed car and crushed phone. Luckily, Adem finds a mansion and butler Vladimir Barkov saves him before he dies of frostbite, hunger, or bear-mauling. Wadim, master of the house, certainly appears inviting, and gives Adem access to hearty meals, courtesy of a personal chef, as well as an inside pool. Then things get weird, starting with someone creeping into his room in the early morning hours. Soon he’s witnessing ghostly figures walking through doors or shouting vague, ominous threats—“You’re next!” The snow eases up, but a mass murderer on the loose results in a police lockdown in Boulder. Now Adem’s a virtual prisoner and apparently the only person able to see the ever-menacing ghouls. There’s a good amount of recognizable characteristics in Baig’s ghost story, from a message written in a foggy mirror to the sound of footsteps coming closer. The author makes them work in sheer abundance, with Adem relentlessly tormented by eerie individuals (sporting bloody-red eyes, for one) who inexplicably vanish. Recurring images set an ambivalent mood, like a candle holder rolling toward Adem or people heading into the “forbidden hallway,” signifying the house’s mysterious, off-limits left wing. Dialogue, however, is occasionally repetitive, with four different characters, for example, using the phrase “No worries.” Initially selfish, the protagonist at least feels guilty about choosing sex over his cousin, while the narrative provides sufficient resolution for all subplots, including Alp and the newfound romance between Adem and maid Maria.
A predominantly traditional ghost story, with enough apparitions to unnerve readers.Pub Date: May 24, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4602-7103-2
Page Count: 168
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Aug. 10, 2016
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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