A studied and thoughtful religious novel.
De Laine presents a heady novel about Jesus’ possible return to Earth.
In 2035, a journalist named Ethan Tellinger ventures to a refugee camp in Jenin in the West Bank. He’s there to interview a person whom some are calling “the Forever Man.” However, Ethan comes to think of him as “Denim Guy”—a reference to the man’s choice of shirt. Whatever name one uses, the stranger is rumored to be Jesus himself, which, as Ethan puts it, “sounds crazy because it is crazy.” Nonetheless, the journalist spends time with Denim Guy to investigate the matter. The two travel the world, and wherever Denim Guy goes, from the Vatican to Florida’s Jacksonville Correctional Center, he quickly wins over those around him. Indeed, people often tell him their life stories. However, although he even convinces the pope of his legitimacy, he’s not without his detractors. He’s not exactly keen on wealthy megachurches, for instance, and those that lead them have their doubts about the stranger; after all, they’d always been led to believe that there would be more fanfare when Jesus returned. Meanwhile, Ethan has a pressing problem of his own: His son is terminally ill. If Denim Guy is truly so powerful, why doesn’t he save Ethan’s boy? Much of the novel is made up of scenes of Denim Guy speaking on faith, as when he asserts that the “rules and regulations” in the Bible aren’t a burden, “because in me, anyone can do this, but apart from me, they can do nothing.” He explains such issues carefully, allowing readers to reflect on the meaning of Scripture in the modern world. However, the action is generally kept to a minimum. Although Denim Guy faces danger, including at the hands of an unsavory warlord, he always emerges unscathed, and his identity isn’t much of a mystery. Still, other questions do effectively remain, such as the fate of Ethan’s son, and what the world will look like when Denim Guy is finished shaking things up.
A studied and thoughtful religious novel.Pub Date: June 30, 2024
ISBN: 9798869217318
Page Count: 204
Publisher: Argonaut Books
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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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