Confrontational and often abstract, but grounded in real human emotion and experience.
A provocative French writer and filmmaker explores #MeToo, the fate of aging actresses, and addiction.
“Dude, screw your apologies, screw your monologue, screw everything: there’s nothing about you that interests me.” This is the opening line of Rebecca Latté’s email response to Oscar Jayack, a novelist who’s trying to apologize for a (since deleted) post in which he excoriated her for no longer being the same person—the same body—that boys like him once fantasized about. Despite her claim that Oscar is boring, Rebecca continues to reply to his emails, and the two develop a relationship that is vital to both of them and shaped not just by their shared working-class childhood, but also by the fact that Oscar’s older sister was Rebecca’s best friend back in the 1980s. There is a third party in this story: Zoé Katana, a feminist blogger who has publicly accused Oscar of sexually harassing her while she was assigned by his publisher to work as his publicist. This is an epistolary novel shaped by contemporary modes of communication, but it’s still an epistolary novel, which is not a forgiving form—or even a believable form, much of the time. Opinions about whether or not Despentes pulls this off depend largely on how much the reader enjoys listening to three hyperverbal, theory-inclined people talk to and at and over each other. That said, Despentes gives readers plenty of reason to stick around, beginning with Rebecca’s refusal to put up with Oscar’s shit. His response to being canceled after he’s outed as a sex pest is predictably self-serving, and his new confidante will have none of it. At the same time, Rebecca comes to see Oscar as a role model in sobriety. Meanwhile, she serendipitously connects with Zoé while Paris is locked down because of Covid-19, which complicates her relationship with Oscar. What makes this novel work as a novel—rather than a collection of rants presented as a novel—is that Rebecca, Oscar, and Zoé come across as real people and their interactions with each other manifestly change them.
Confrontational and often abstract, but grounded in real human emotion and experience.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2024
ISBN: 9780374611613
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 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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