A stirring, engrossing tale.
The story of a fateful night.
On December 7, 1935, two wealthy Tunisian families were torn apart when a young wife and mother was accused of adultery. In Tunisian novelist Ghenim’s captivating narrative, translated by Faiza and McNeill, 11 of the characters involved recall an event that has continued to haunt them for decades, revealing in their confessions and testimonies a tangled web of lies, suspicions, and betrayals, as well as a society pervaded by homophobia, classism, antisemitism, and racism. French colonialism sparked social unrest and political upheaval. Medicine was undermined by superstition; jinns, demons, and ghouls abounded; and the evil eye, it was believed, could be diverted by a Black child’s face. In a rabidly patriarchal society, the accused woman, Zbaida Rassaa, grew up in a relatively progressive family. Rare among Tunisian women, she and her sisters attended a French school, and to supplement their education, their father hired a young man to tutor them in Arabic and the Quran. That tutor, Tahar Haddad, a social reformer, wrote a book criticizing women’s oppression under Islamic law and advocating for women’s rights—a book that proved dangerously incendiary. For years, Zbaida and Tahar had been in love, but when he dared to ask for her hand, her father summarily married her off to Mohsen Ennaifer, the son of a staunchly conservative patriarch. “There’s nothing in this life more harmful to women than trying to imitate men,” Mohsen’s father declared about the folly of educating women. Although the urbane, cosmopolitan Mohsen shared Zbaida’s pleasure in theater and music, her feelings for Tahar were not quashed by marriage and motherhood. But were they ever lovers? Ghenim keeps the reader guessing, as she does her characters, with passion and anguish, disclosing devastating secrets of lives maliciously destroyed.
A stirring, engrossing tale.Pub Date: today
ISBN: 9798889660507
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
The sequel to It Ends With Us (2016) shows the aftermath of domestic violence through the eyes of a single mother.
Lily Bloom is still running a flower shop; her abusive ex-husband, Ryle Kincaid, is still a surgeon. But now they’re co-parenting a daughter, Emerson, who's almost a year old. Lily won’t send Emerson to her father’s house overnight until she’s old enough to talk—“So she can tell me if something happens”—but she doesn’t want to fight for full custody lest it become an expensive legal drama or, worse, a physical fight. When Lily runs into Atlas Corrigan, a childhood friend who also came from an abusive family, she hopes their friendship can blossom into love. (For new readers, their history unfolds in heartfelt diary entries that Lily addresses to Finding Nemo star Ellen DeGeneres as she considers how Atlas was a calming presence during her turbulent childhood.) Atlas, who is single and running a restaurant, feels the same way. But even though she’s divorced, Lily isn’t exactly free. Behind Ryle’s veneer of civility are his jealousy and resentment. Lily has to plan her dates carefully to avoid a confrontation. Meanwhile, Atlas’ mother returns with shocking news. In between, Lily and Atlas steal away for romantic moments that are even sweeter for their authenticity as Lily struggles with child care, breastfeeding, and running a business while trying to find time for herself.
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-668-00122-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
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.
