A country's fraught history comes vividly to life through a child's eyes.
An ingenuous young teenager is thrust into a nation's chaos.
Novelist, poet, and essayist Mabanckou returns to his native Congo in a gentle tale translated by Stevenson. At once charming and disquieting, the novel is narrated by Michel, who lives with his mother and Papa Roger, his adopted father, in the town of Pointe-Noire. A student at the Three-Glorious-Days middle school, Michel is given to daydreaming and making innocent remarks that discomfit some people. He tries to censor himself, reflecting, “people will say Michel always exaggerates, and sometimes he says rude things without meaning to.” His world is inhabited by evil spirits, river monsters, superstition, and fierce animosity between northerners and southerners. He learns that whites and black capitalists exploit Congolese, that other African nations—especially Zaire—are trying to wage war, create chaos, and steal Congo’s oil; he knows that colonization has victimized Africa; and he is a fervent supporter of the Congolese Socialist Revolution. Whatever he learns of life beyond Pointe-Noire comes from Papa Roger, who works at the posh Victory Palace Hotel, where he has gleaned a measure of sophistication about world events. On his static-filled radio, Papa Roger prefers to listen to the Voice of America rather than the Voice of the Congolese Revolution. The critical event of Michel’s young life occurs on March 18, 1977, when the nation learns that President Marien Ngouabi has died: Gossip swirls, and quickly the streets fill with military vehicles. Michel has been taught to revere Ngouabi: “It was Marien Ngouabi who changed our national anthem, our flag, and who laid out the path of scientific socialism we follow today....” The assassination upends Michel’s world, and in the ominous atmosphere that ensues, he comes to understand his country’s politics, and his own family’s involvement, in disquieting new ways.
A country's fraught history comes vividly to life through a child's eyes.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-62097-606-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: The New Press
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.
A love story about a life of second chances.
In Nassau, in the Bahamas, casino detective Vincent LaPorta grills Alfie Logan, who’d come up a winner three times in a row at the roulette table and walked away with $2 million. “How did you do it?” asks the detective. Alfie calmly denies cheating. You wired all the money to a Gianna Rule, LaPorta says. Why? To explain, Alfie produces a composition book with the words “For the Boss, to Be Read Upon My Death” written on the cover. Read this for answers, Alfie suggests, calling it a love story. His mother had passed along to him a strange trait: He can say “Twice!” and go back to a specific time and place to have a do-over. But it only works once for any particular moment, and then he must live with the new consequences. He can only do this for himself and can’t prevent anyone from dying. Alfie regularly uses his power—failing to impress a girl the first time, he finds out more about her, goes back in time, and presto! She likes him. The premise is of course not credible—LaPorta doesn’t buy it either—but it’s intriguing. Most people would probably love to go back and unsay something. The story’s focus is on Alfie’s love for Gianna and whether it’s requited, unrequited, or both. In any case, he’s obsessed with her. He’s a good man, though, an intelligent person with ordinary human failings and a solid moral compass. Albom writes in a warm, easy style that transports the reader to a world of second chances and what-ifs, where spirituality lies close to the surface but never intrudes on the story. Though a cynic will call it sappy, anyone who is sick to their core from the daily news will enjoy this escape from reality.
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780062406682
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.
A year in the life of the No. 2 boarding school in America—up from No. 19 last year!
Rumors of Hilderbrand’s retirement were greatly exaggerated, it turns out, since not only has she not gone out to pasture, she’s started over in high school, with her daughter Shelby Cunningham as co-author. As their delicious new book opens, it’s Move-In Day at Tiffin Academy, and Head of School Audre Robinson is warmly welcoming the returning and new students to the New England campus, the latter group including a rare midstream addition to the junior class. Brainiac Charley Hicks is transferring from public school in Maryland to a spot that opened up when one of the school’s most beloved students died by suicide the preceding year. She will be joining a large, diverse cast of adult and teenage characters—queen bees, jealous second-stringers, boozehounds young and old, secret lesbians, people chasing the wrong people chasing other wrong people—all of them royally screwed when an app called Zip Zap appears and starts blasting everyone’s secrets all over campus. How the heck…? Meanwhile, it seems so unlikely that Tiffin has jumped up to the No. 2 spot in the boarding-school rankings that a high-profile magazine launches an investigation, and even the head is worried that there may have been payola involved. The school has a reputation for being more social than academic, and this quality gets an exciting new exclamation point when the resident millionaire bad boy opens a high-style secret speakeasy for select juniors in a forgotten basement. It’s called Priorities. Exactly. One problem: Cinnamon Peters’ mysterious suicide hangs over the book in an odd way, especially since the note she left for her closest male friend is not to be opened for another year—and isn’t. This is surely a setup for a sequel, but it’s a bit frustrating here, and bobs sort of shallowly along amid the general high spirits.
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9780316567855
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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