An uneven effort with somewhat flat characters and prose that fails to sing consistently.
A sprawling novel about the regrets and desires of a family of women.
Acevedo’s widely anticipated new novel, her first for adults, begins with an oblique bit of magic: Flor, who for her whole life has been able to predict when and how people will die, announces that she will be holding a living wake for herself, and all her siblings are invited (and their children, too). Whether Flor has predicted her own death—or anyone else’s—doesn’t become clear to either the reader or Flor’s family until later. In the meantime, we’re introduced to Flor’s sisters, Matilde, Pastora, and Camila; her daughter, Ona; and her niece Yadi, many of whom have magical powers of their own. Chapters alternate among points of view, but unfortunately, Acevedo hasn’t endowed any of these characters—aside from Ona—with a particularly distinctive voice, which means that it can take a bit of effort to remember who’s who. The novel’s pacing sags, too, and despite the anticipation of Flor’s upcoming wake, there isn’t much in the way of forward momentum. In places, Acevedo’s prose seems rushed or slightly tangled. At one point, she writes, “the alarm system that most folk have that trip one into fight or flight was muted in Flor”—an unnecessarily wordy sentence that relies on a mixed metaphor. Even the casual references to magic feel tired, as if Acevedo had borrowed the affectation from other writers but hadn’t imbued it with a flavor all her own. Elsewhere, though, the prose shines: “Maybe that is the original definition of nightmare? A dream that gallops through, dragging the dreamer from one haunting to the next.”
An uneven effort with somewhat flat characters and prose that fails to sing consistently.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9780063207264
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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