Two 15-year-old Glasgow boys, one Protestant and one Catholic, share a love against all odds.
The Sighthill tenement where Shuggie Bain (2020), Stuart's Booker Prize–winning debut, unfurled is glimpsed in his follow-up, set in the 1990s in an adjacent neighborhood. You wouldn't think you'd be eager to return to these harsh, impoverished environs, but again this author creates characters so vivid, dilemmas so heart-rending, and dialogue so brilliant that the whole thing sucks you in like a vacuum cleaner. As the book opens, Mungo's hard-drinking mother, Mo-Maw, is making a rare appearance at the flat where Mungo lives with his 16-year-old sister, Jodie. Jodie has full responsibility for the household, as their older brother, Hamish, a Proddy warlord, lives with the 15-year-old mother of his child and her parents. Mo-Maw's come by only to pack her gentle son off on a manly fishing trip with two disreputable strangers. Though everything about these men is alarming to Mungo, "fifteen years he had lived and breathed in Scotland, and he had never seen a glen, a loch, a forest, or a ruined castle." So at least there's that to look forward to. This ultracreepy weekend plays out over the course of the book, interleaved with the events of the months before. Mungo has met a neighbor boy named James, who keeps racing pigeons in a "doocot"; the boys are kindred spirits and offer each other a tenderness utterly absent from any other part of their lives. But a same-sex relationship across the sectarian divide is so unthinkable that their every interaction is laced with fear. Even before Hamish gets wind of these goings-on, he too has decided to make Mungo a man, forcing him to participate in a West Side Story–type gang battle. As in Shuggie Bain, the yearning for a mother's love is omnipresent, even on the battlefield. "They kept their chests puffed out until they could be safe in their mammies’ arms again; where they could coorie into her side as she watched television and she would ask, 'What is all this, eh, what’s with all these cuddles?' and they would say nothing, desperate to just be boys again, wrapped up safe in her softness."
Romantic, terrifying, brutal, tender, and, in the end, sneakily hopeful. What a writer.Pub Date: April 5, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-8021-5955-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2022
Categories: LITERARY FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | GENERAL FICTION
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BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
17
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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. 13, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
Categories: ROMANCE | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE | GENERAL ROMANCE | GENERAL FICTION
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Named for an imperfectly worded fortune cookie, Hoover's (It Ends with Us, 2016, etc.) latest compares a woman’s relationship with her husband before and after she finds out she’s infertile.
Quinn meets her future husband, Graham, in front of her soon-to-be-ex-fiance’s apartment, where Graham is about to confront him for having an affair with his girlfriend. A few years later, they are happily married but struggling to conceive. The “then and now” format—with alternating chapters moving back and forth in time—allows a hopeful romance to blossom within a dark but relatable dilemma. Back then, Quinn’s bad breakup leads her to the love of her life. In the now, she’s exhausted a laundry list of fertility options, from IVF treatments to adoption, and the silver lining is harder to find. Quinn’s bad relationship with her wealthy mother also prevents her from asking for more money to throw at the problem. But just when Quinn’s narrative starts to sound like she’s writing a long Facebook rant about her struggles, she reveals the larger issue: Ever since she and Graham have been trying to have a baby, intimacy has become a chore, and she doesn’t know how to tell him. Instead, she hopes the contents of a mystery box she’s kept since their wedding day will help her decide their fate. With a few well-timed silences, Hoover turns the fairly common problem of infertility into the more universal problem of poor communication. Graham and Quinn may or may not become parents, but if they don’t talk about their feelings, they won’t remain a couple, either.
Finding positivity in negative pregnancy-test results, this depiction of a marriage in crisis is nearly perfect.Pub Date: July 17, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-7159-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2018
Categories: FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP
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