Fans of Jenny Offill and Rachel Cusk will enjoy this unusual work of personal mythology.
The daughter of two deaf parents explores her identity in a shape-shifting work straddling the boundaries of genre.
Durastanti, a noted Italian writer born in Brooklyn, formulates her first novel as a series of autobiographical and philosophical vignettes organized by theme: Family, Travels, Health, Work & Money, Love, and What's Your Sign. The often whimsical subheadings include "The Girl Absent for Dizzy Spells" and "The Love That Would Not End for Another Eighteen Years, If It Ever Did, Began." While the beginning of the book focuses on her parents' origins and the final sections on her own experience of couple-hood as an adult, the book is resolutely nonlinear; the author confides in an afterword that she would have loved to have every copy printed with a different chapter sequence. "But is it a true story?" is a question first posed by the narrator's mother, who "hates fiction" and "believes The Exorcist is a realist masterpiece," and it returns repeatedly right up until the last sentence of the book. Who can say? "It takes only a little misstep to slip out of a novel, to fall into an autobiography and resurface again as an essay, all in the short span of a sentence." The author's parents are romantic characters given to extremes—they met the day her father tried to jump off the Sisto Bridge in Trastevere, or possibly the day he saved her mother from two thieves who were kicking her and trying to yank away her purse. Growing up in a chaotic, confusing family between Brooklyn and rural southern Italy, the author and her older brother, who were never taught sign language, bonded intensely. "When I'm asked who taught me to speak properly...I realize the first language I spoke was that of the first person I loved: the Italian of a boy six years my senior." Further guideposts and socialization were provided by literature, cinema, and music: Last Exit to Brooklynwas "the book that changed everything...revealing all my insides," while in her adolescence, R.E.M's Automatic For the People was an alternative to a social life: "For some reason, sinking into a dimension of held-in breath, potential euthanasia, and men on the moon was comforting."
Fans of Jenny Offill and Rachel Cusk will enjoy this unusual work of personal mythology.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-08794-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2021
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
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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