An uneven but entertaining story of war and exile, its shaggy-dog whimsy redeemed by strong writing.
A young gay man and his faithful dog weather harrowing violence in El Salvador and a long trek to America in Ortega-Medina’s hallucinatory novel.
Isaac Perez, a teenager living San Salvador in 1978, dreams of becoming an astronaut. Isaac starts an affair with Gerónimo, a handsome, politically engaged altar boy, but his deepest bond is with Ahbhu, an injured Australian Cattle Dog pup that he nurses back to health. The promiscuous Gerónimo never fully requites Isaac’s love, but Ahbhu is supremely faithful to him; indeed, their communion is so intense that Ahbhu is able to hold telepathic conversations with Isaac. This comes in handy as El Salvador’s civil war, pitting left-wing guerillas against the army and right-wing death squads, escalates in the 1980s. When a bus carrying Isaac and a group of left-wing activists is stopped by soldiers, Ahbhu guides him to safety as a massacre begins in which Isaac’s brother Arturo is killed. Framed for the murder of a soldier, Isaac flees north toward the United States, assisted by Suchi, a no-nonsense lesbian who belongs to an underground railroad for migrating gay people. In Mexico City, Isaac meets dreamboat Diego and his father, Don Federico, an indigenous seer who can also converse with Ahbhu. This magical-realist yarn suffers from weak main characters: Ahbhu is heroic but one-dimensional, and Isaac comes off as passive; he’s dependent on everyone and his dog to steer him. Fortunately, the supporting characters are vibrant and sharply etched—the hard-bitten Suchi flintily surmounts all challenges but is helpless prey to a leggy con woman—and Ortega-Medina’s prose is evocative and punchy (“Before we had even a chance to react, Cano dragged the driver off the bus, shoved him onto the ground, and put a bullet in his head, the sound of the single gunshot ricocheting off the hills”). The fantasy elements are a bit goofy, but the storytelling is vigorous and gripping.
An uneven but entertaining story of war and exile, its shaggy-dog whimsy redeemed by strong writing.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2025
ISBN: 9781612943022
Page Count: 300
Publisher: Amble Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
A heartbreaking, laugh-provoking, and absolutely Ephron-esque look at the beauty and fragility of everyday life.
A woman faces a health crisis and obsesses over a local accident in this wonderful follow-up to Sandwich (2024).
Newman begins her latest with a quote from Nora Ephron: “Death is a sniper. It strikes people you love, people you like, people you know—it’s everywhere. You could be next. But then you turn out not to be. But then again, you could be.” It sets an appropriate tone for a story that is just as full of death and dread as it is laughter. Two years after the events of Sandwich, Rocky is back home in Western Massachusetts and happily surrounded by family—her daughter, Willa, lives with her and her husband, Nick, while applying to Ph.D. programs; her widowed father, Mort, has moved into the in-law apartment behind their house. When a young man who graduated from high school with Rocky’s son, Jamie, is hit by a train, Rocky finds herself spiraling as she thinks about how close the tragedy came to her own family. She’s also freaking out about a mysterious rash her dermatologist can’t explain. Both instances are tailor-made for internet research and stalking. As Rocky obsessively googles her symptoms and finds only bad news (“Here’s what’s true about the Internet: very infrequently do people log on with their good news. Gosh, they don’t write, I had this weird rash on my forearm? And it turned out to be completely nothing!”), she also compulsively checks the Facebook page of the accident victim’s mother. Newman excels at showing how sorrow and joy coexist in everyday life. She masterfully balances a modern exploration of grief with truly laugh-out-loud lines (one passage about the absurdity of collecting a stool sample and delivering it to the doctor stands out). As Rocky deals with the byzantine frustrations of the medical system, she also has to learn, once more, how to see her children, husband, father, and herself as fully flawed and lovable humans.
A heartbreaking, laugh-provoking, and absolutely Ephron-esque look at the beauty and fragility of everyday life.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780063453913
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
PERSPECTIVES
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