An extraordinary debut that insists that we can—and must—mend each other.
Tessa is 27 years old and pregnant with her third child when she runs into her first love, a woman named Mel, and begins to question the life she has built.
Living in a trailer with her husband, Henry, and their children, Preston and Ruby, Tessa feels increasingly smothered by her mother-in-law, Angie, on whose land they reside. Mel's return prompts Tessa to revisit her youth; graphic flashbacks reveal her mother’s abandonment and the harrowing abuse she suffered at the hands of her stepfather and stepbrother. (Stark’s depiction of those abuses never strays into trauma porn.) The respite Mel’s love offered teenage Tessa was cruelly taken away when Mel left suddenly and Tessa was forced to draw on previously unknown strength to survive. This indirectly leads her into the lives of Henry and Angie and a future filled with love. Adult Tessa's emotional withdrawal from family life exemplifies how trauma can trigger self-sabotage, secrecy, the turning away from those who love us, and the fight-or-flight instinct. The theme of motherhood underpins the novel, specifically the synchronous fragility and resilience of mothers and the hurts done to and by mothers. Caregiving is represented as at once claustrophobic and a source of deep joy: "Honey, tired ain’t something women like you and me get to be. Looking after is what I was built for." In Tessa and Angie’s relationship, Stark captures female solidarity, a shared maternal understanding, and the sacredness of keeping each other's secrets. As Mel’s presence forces Tessa to confront the vast kaleidoscope of her own personhood, the many selves she has inhabited throughout her life, Tessa accepts that she must make peace with what might have been. This agonizingly sad novel nevertheless rejoices in small acts of loving. When Angie observes that "each other is the whole of what we’ve got," Stark offers up a balm to soothe not only Tessa's hurt, but the reader’s.
An extraordinary debut that insists that we can—and must—mend each other.Pub Date: March 26, 2024
ISBN: 9780593656204
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Penguin Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
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
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
The sequel to It Ends With Us (2016) shows the aftermath of domestic violence through the eyes of a single mother.
Lily Bloom is still running a flower shop; her abusive ex-husband, Ryle Kincaid, is still a surgeon. But now they’re co-parenting a daughter, Emerson, who's almost a year old. Lily won’t send Emerson to her father’s house overnight until she’s old enough to talk—“So she can tell me if something happens”—but she doesn’t want to fight for full custody lest it become an expensive legal drama or, worse, a physical fight. When Lily runs into Atlas Corrigan, a childhood friend who also came from an abusive family, she hopes their friendship can blossom into love. (For new readers, their history unfolds in heartfelt diary entries that Lily addresses to Finding Nemo star Ellen DeGeneres as she considers how Atlas was a calming presence during her turbulent childhood.) Atlas, who is single and running a restaurant, feels the same way. But even though she’s divorced, Lily isn’t exactly free. Behind Ryle’s veneer of civility are his jealousy and resentment. Lily has to plan her dates carefully to avoid a confrontation. Meanwhile, Atlas’ mother returns with shocking news. In between, Lily and Atlas steal away for romantic moments that are even sweeter for their authenticity as Lily struggles with child care, breastfeeding, and running a business while trying to find time for herself.
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-668-00122-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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