Chang-Rae Lee My Year Abroad Is a Wild, Unexpected Ride from This Acclaimed Novelist P
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Featuring 308 Industry-First Reviews of Fiction, Nonfiction, Children'sand YA books KIRKUSVOL. LXXXIX, NO. 3 | 1 FEBRUARY 2021 REVIEWS Chang-rae Lee My Year Abroad is a wild, unexpected ride from this acclaimed novelist p. 14 Also in the issue: Kristin Cashore, Victor Wooten, and Cynthia Leitich Smith from the editor’s desk: Small Is Beautiful Chairman BY TOM BEER HERBERT SIMON President & Publisher MARC WINKELMAN John Paraskevas # Big books hog the spotlight, but sometimes a small book—short, sharp, Chief Executive Officer and stealthy—gets the job done more efficiently. This is especially true in MEG LABORDE KUEHN [email protected] the nonfiction category, where long-winded biographies and histories (not Editor-in-Chief to mention memoirs such as former President Barack Obama’s TOM BEER A Prom [email protected] , weighing in at nearly 800 pages) are the norm. But a small book, ised Land Vice President of Marketing whether a primer, an argument, or a short history, can wake up readers SARAH KALINA [email protected] rather than merely exhaust them. Here are five nonfiction books out this Managing/Nonfiction Editor ERIC LIEBETRAU month, all less than 200 pages each, that offer a great return on investment. [email protected] Pure America: Eugenics and the Making of Modern Virginia by Elizabeth Fiction Editor LAURIE MUCHNICK Catte (Belt Publishing, Feb. 2): The author of What You Are Getting Wrong [email protected] Tom Beer About Appalachia here offers a brief, disturbing history of the eugenics move- Young Readers’ Editor VICKY SMITH ment in her home state of Virginia. Her focus is the Western State Luna- [email protected] tic Asylum in Staunton, where, from 1926 to 1979, thousands of patients—many of them poor, Young Readers’ Editor LAURA SIMEON immigrant, Black, and/or Indigenous—were sterilized in an effort to uphold White supremacist [email protected] ideology. Our reviewer calls the slim volume a “well-told, richly contextualized investigation of an Editor at Large MEGAN LABRISE appalling episode in American history.” [email protected] by Randall Balmer (Steer- Vice President of Kirkus Indie Solemn Reverence: The Separation of Church and State in American Life KAREN SCHECHNER forth, Feb. 2): Balmer, a professor of religion at Dartmouth, reasserts the argument for the separa- [email protected] tion of church and state in American life, as first enshrined in the establishment clause of the First Senior Indie Editor DAVID RAPP Amendment. Although the separation has overwhelmingly benefitted the nation—and its diverse [email protected] religious organizations—he sees this founding principle under threat. “A stern warning that those Indie Editor MYRA FORSBERG who push for the intrusion of religion into public life do so at the peril of [email protected] both,” says Kirkus’ reviewer. Associate Manager of Indie KATERINA PAPPAS Appropriate: A Provocation by Paisley Rekdal (Norton, Feb. 16): A poet and [email protected] Editorial Assistant professor of literature who identifies as mixed-race addresses six letters to JOHANNA ZWIRNER an imagined student on the hot-button topic of cultural appropriation in [email protected] Mysteries Editor the arts. Can or should a writer, for example, write in the voice of someone THOMAS LEITCH outside their own community? At once a work of theory and an exercise in Contributing Editor criticism—the author looks closely at books such as Jeanine Cummins’ con- GREGORY McNAMEE Copy Editor troversial American Dirt—this is, in the words of the Kirkus reviewer, an BETSY JUDKINS “astute, lucid examination of an incendiary issue.” Designer ALEX HEAD AntiRacist Ally: An Introduction to Activism and Action Kirkus Editorial Production Editor by Sophie Williams (Amistad/HarperCollins, Feb. 16): ROBIN O’DELL This primer, by the U.K. activist behind the @officialblackmillenial account [email protected] Kirkus Editorial Associate on Instagram, moves readers beyond an analysis of racism toward the con- Production Editor STEPHANIE SUMMERHAYS crete steps we can take to support social justice in everyday life. A “deliberately [email protected] small book,” in the author’s words, it offers next steps (and further reading) Website and Software Developer PERCY PEREZ for those inspired by last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests. Our reviewer [email protected] calls it “essential reading for our times, with the goal of true human equality.” Advertising Director MONIQUE STENSRUD Carte Blanche: The Erosion of Medical Consent by Harriet A. Washington [email protected] (Columbia Global Reports, Feb. 23): The National Book Critics Circle Award– Advertising Associate TATIANA ARNOLD winning author of Medical Apartheid continues her study of medical ethics in [email protected] this concise volume, recapping the history of research conducted on African Americans without Graphic Designer KYLA NOVAK their consent—the Tuskegee syphilis study of 1932-1972 being the most notorious but hardly the [email protected] Controller most recent—and offers alarming evidence that such exploitative practices are in many ways being MICHELLE GONZALES normalized. “An enlightening and well-supported examination of shocking malfeasance,” says our [email protected] for customer service review. or subscription questions, please call 1-800-316-9361 Print indexes: www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/print-indexes Submission Guidelines: www.kirkusreviews.com/about/submission-guidlines Kirkus Blog: www.kirkusreviews.com/blog Subscriptions: www.kirkusreviews.com/subscription Advertising Opportunities: www.kirkusreviews.com/about/advertising- Newsletters: www.kirkusreviews.com/subscription/newsletter/add Cover photo by opportunities Michelle Branca Lee 2 | 1 february 2021 | from the editor’s desk | kirkus.com | you can now purchase books online at kirkus.com contents fiction INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS ...........................................................4 The Kirkus Star is awarded REVIEWS ...............................................................................................4 to books of remarkable EDITOR’S NOTE.....................................................................................6 merit, as determined by the ON OUR COVER: CHANG-RAE LEE ................................................. 14 impartial editors of Kirkus. MYSTERY ..............................................................................................32 SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY ......................................................... 38 ROMANCE ........................................................................................... 39 nonfiction adult young INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS .........................................................44 REVIEWS .............................................................................................44 EDITOR’S NOTE...................................................................................46 INTERVIEW: VICTOR WOOTEN ........................................................52 children’s INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS .........................................................84 REVIEWS .............................................................................................84 EDITOR’S NOTE...................................................................................86 INTERVIEW: CYNTHIA LEITICH SMITH ..........................................96 EASTER & PASSOVER PICTURE BOOKS ........................................119 young adult INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS ........................................................123 REVIEWS ............................................................................................123 EDITOR’S NOTE................................................................................. 124 INTERVIEW: KRISTIN CASHORE ...................................................128 It’s as timely as they come: Don Brown offers a cogent, accessible, and absorbing history of indie immunology in graphic-novel form. Read the INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS ....................................................... 140 review on p. 90. REVIEWS ........................................................................................... 140 EDITOR’S NOTE................................................................................. 142 Don’t wait on the mail for reviews! You can read prepublication reviews as they are released on kirkus.com—even before they are published in the magazine. Kirkus Reviews SEEN & HEARD ................................................................................. 158 You can also access the current issue and back issues of on our website by logging in as a subscriber. If you do not have a username or password, please contact customer care to set up your account by calling 1.800.316.9361 or APPRECIATIONS: BETTY FRIEDAN ............................................... 159 emailing [email protected]. | kirkus.com | contents | 1 february 2021 | 3 fiction THE REPUBLIC OF These titles earned the Kirkus Star: FALSE TRUTHS Al Aswany, Alaa NORTHERN SPY by Flynn Berry .........................................................5 Trans. by Fellowes, S.R. Knopf (416 pp.) SEND FOR ME by Lauren Fox ..............................................................8 $28.95 | Apr. 27, 2021 THE NINE LIVES OF ROSE NAPOLITANO by Donna Freitas .......... 9 978-0-307-95722-1 EDIE RICHTER IS NOT ALONE by Rebecca Handler ........................10 A reimagining of Egypt’s 2011 Tahrir Square protests and the hypocrisies under- SUBDIVISION by J. Robert Lennon ....................................................16