Featuring 407 Industry-First Reviews of Fiction, Nonfiction, Children'sand YA books KIRKUSVOL. LXXXVIII, NO. 6 | 15 MARCH 2020 REVIEWS N.K. Jemisin In The City We Became, the award-winning science fiction writer keeps breaking new ground p. 14 Also in the issue: Kevin Nguyen, Victoria James, Jessica Kim, and more from the editor’s desk: Great Escapes Through Reading Chairman BY TOM BEER HERBERT SIMON President & Publisher MARC WINKELMAN John Paraskevas # March is the dreariest month. We know that spring is around the cor- Chief Executive Officer ner, but…it can be a long time coming. If you’re fortunate, you might escape MEG LABORDE KUEHN
[email protected] to a Florida beach or some other far-flung destination for rejuvenation. For Editor-in-Chief the rest of us, spring break may come in the form of a book that transports TOM BEER
[email protected] us elsewhere, indelibly rendered through prose. Here are five titles, new or Vice President of Marketing coming soon, that the travel agent in me would like to recommend. But be SARAH KALINA
[email protected] forewarned: There is frequently trouble in paradise. Managing/Nonfiction Editor ERIC LIEBETRAU Saint X by Alexis Schaitkin (Celadon Books, Feb. 18): The title refers
[email protected] to the fictional Caribbean island where the Thomas family is on a vacation Fiction Editor LAURIE MUCHNICK at an evocatively described resort—“the long drive lined with perfectly ver-
[email protected] Tom Beer tical palm trees,” “the beach where lounge chairs are arranged in a parab- Children’s Editor VICKY SMITH ola,” the scents of “frangipani and coconut sunscreen and the mild saline of
[email protected] equatorial ocean.” Alas, this family vacation does not end well, forever altering the lives of Claire Young Adult Editor LAURA SIMEON Thomas, age 7 at the time, and Clive Richardson, an employee at the resort.