Featuring 324 Industry-First Reviews of Fiction, Nonfiction, Children'sand YA books KIRKUSVOL. LXXXVII, NO. 24 | 15 DECEMBER 2019 REVIEWS from the editor’s desk: Our 2020 Wish List Chairman HERBERT SIMON President & Publisher BY TOM BEER MARC WINKELMAN # Chief Executive Officer MEG LABORDE KUEHN
[email protected] John Paraskevas Editor-in-Chief Over the past few weeks, the staff of Kirkus Reviews has been enveloped TOM BEER in a golden nimbus of book love, as we presented our Best of 2019 lists in
[email protected] Vice President of Marketing fiction, picture books, middle-grade books, nonfiction, and young adult SARAH KALINA books. In this issue we highlight 100 of the best Indie titles published this
[email protected] Managing/Nonfiction Editor year. Books are wonderful, we feel worthy, and all is right with the world. ERIC LIEBETRAU Lots of heart emojis.
[email protected] Fiction Editor But hang on just a moment. LAURIE MUCHNICK Kirkus sees thousands of books every year, and there’s plenty that we
[email protected] Children’s Editor like. For every outstanding work of literature brought forth by the VICKY SMITH don’t
[email protected] publishing industry, there are dozens of others that are forgettable, half- Tom Beer Young Adult Editor baked, or, occasionally, downright objectionable. We get it—this is a tough LAURA SIMEON
[email protected] business without a surefire model for success, and publishers have to try a lot of different things Editor at Large to see what works. MEGAN LABRISE
[email protected] But we’re critics first and foremost, and our job is to evaluate books honestly and fairly, good Vice President of Kirkus Indie and bad alike.