Wry, sharp, charming, resistant to neat closures and easy turns—a debut of enormous promise.
The witty, fiercely intelligent story of a young alcoholic in the fragile early days of sobriety, suspended between addiction and whatever life might come next—the shape of which he can’t yet see.
Twenty-six-year-old Dennis Monk, just months sober, gets the boot from his parents’ suburban Philadelphia home and begins what will be, over the novel’s episodic chapters, a half-year odyssey as the serial houseguest of relatives, old flames, and running buddies from high school and college. Dennis jumps from makeshift situation to awkward makeshift situation (pushed-together couches he hopes won’t get sold out from under him, cots in basements alongside washing machines) all over a rapidly gentrifying Philadelphia filled with his only-marginally-less-lost peers. Sometimes he’s a freeloader; sometimes he earns his keep, sort of, through errands not always handled successfully, projects he can fake his way through, or fitful employment. Dennis is nimble-tongued and keenly observant, and the book offers all sorts of humorous delights. Yet the reader quickly sees, too, that irony is Dennis’ protective coloration, that his wit is anxious and self-preserving. He may not be a gentrifier, but he is a kind of hipster who, like his coevals, simply wants to cobble together, from the unpromising materials available, an identity he can live in. Beneath the world weariness and sarcasm we get glimpses (for instance, in the bit-by-bit-revealed story of a friend who died from drinking) of a sweetness and vulnerability, even a fragile hopefulness, that Dennis is at pains to hide and resist. This is less a traditional novel than a linked collection of stories, a serial picaresque, but ultimately that approach feels like the right one for a book about navigating—or maybe just drifting through, in search of some useful piece of flotsam to grab hold of—a limbo of one’s own making. As a starting point for a new life, “non-drinker” is a necessary condition...but by itself that datum doesn’t get one very far. The book ends with Dennis, one year sober, on the verge of—well, who knows what, but verges beat sloughs every day.
Wry, sharp, charming, resistant to neat closures and easy turns—a debut of enormous promise.Pub Date: May 7, 2024
ISBN: 9781662602245
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Astra House
Review Posted Online: March 23, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
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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