Terrific characters, rich worldbuilding, deep thoughts about fiction and morality, a love story, and a happy ending.
A college freshman finds out that everyone was right: Her decision to have her English professor’s baby really does ruin her life. Until it doesn’t.
“I’d learned about the terms first person, third person, and second person in high school, and I’d thought that was all there was to point of view until I met Bodhi’s father in the fall of 2017.” Not for nothing does Margo’s journey into motherhood begin in English class, as she switches back and forth between third and first all the way through the book, using third for distance from her cringier mistakes. The elevator pitch for Thorpe’s fourth novel—as exuberant as the first three—is Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow with online porn instead of video games. Really! It’s a story of friendship, love, and family set in a different part of the big world of cyber-storytelling. Shortly after Bodhi is born, Margo finds she can’t afford the child care necessary to hold on to her waitressing job. Then two of her three roommates move out in response to infant wailing, and she has to find a source of income fast. She ends up posting pictures on OnlyFans, a subscription-based porn site. “Lonely, hot girl in financial freefall, please help me make rent this month....If you want to find out what Pokémon your dick most resembles and what attacks it might have, send me a $20 tip and I’ll provide a full write-up.” Turns out she is very good at this. Further help with the rent comes when her father, Jinx, a wrestling world icon, comes fresh from rehab to move in and help her with the baby, and then she reaches out to OnlyFans viral stars WangMangler and SucculentRose, who have much to teach. Just as she’s beginning to get it together, the English teacher does a complete 180—instead of wanting nothing to do with Bodhi, he’s now demanding full custody. The title is the only bad thing about this book.
Terrific characters, rich worldbuilding, deep thoughts about fiction and morality, a love story, and a happy ending.Pub Date: June 11, 2024
ISBN: 9780063356580
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Haig’s positive message will keep his fans happy.
A British widow travels to Ibiza and learns that it’s never too late to have a happy life.
In a world that seems to be getting more unstable by the moment, Haig’s novels are a steady ship in rough seas, offering a much-needed positive message. In works like the bestselling The Midnight Library (2020), he reminds us that finding out what you truly love and where you belong in the universe are the foundations of building a better existence. His latest book continues this upbeat messaging, albeit in a somewhat repetitive and facile way. Retired British schoolteacher Grace Winters discovers that an old acquaintance has died and left her a ramshackle home in Ibiza. A widow who lost her only child years earlier, Grace is at first reluctant to visit the house, because, at 72, she more or less believes her chance for happiness is over—but when she rouses herself to travel to the island, she discovers the opposite is true. A mystery surrounds her friend’s death involving a roguish islander, his activist daughter, an internationally famous DJ, and a strange glow in the sea that acts as a powerful life force and upends Grace’s ideas of how the cosmos works. Framed as a response to a former student’s email, the narrative follows Grace’s journey from skeptic (she was a math teacher, after all) to believer in the possibility of magic as she learns to move on from the past. Her transformation is the book’s main conflict, aside from a protest against an evil developer intent on destroying Ibiza’s natural beauty. The outcome is never in doubt, and though the story often feels stretched to the limit—this novel could have easily been a novella—the author’s insistence on the power of connection to change lives comes through loud and clear.
Haig’s positive message will keep his fans happy.Pub Date: Sept. 3, 2024
ISBN: 9780593489277
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2024
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
