Vol. Lxxxvii, No. 5
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Featuring 347 Industry-First Reviews of Fiction, Nonfiction, Children'sand Young Adult KIRKUSVOL. LXXXVII, NO. 5 | 1 MARCH 2019 REVIEWS Q: IN THE 20 YEARS BETWEEN THE PUBLICATIONS OF SPEAK AND SHOUT, HOW HAS YOUR PROCESS CHANGED? A: They have been completely different processes. Writing Speak meant transmuting my emotional experience as a rape survivor into a fictional story. SHOUT was written in fire. I wrote it with the intention of telling my entire story and amplifying the stories of other survivors. We need to honor all victims of sexual violence, hold the perpetrators accountable, and begin conversations about consent and healthy sexuality. I hope that SHOUT will be a part of that movement. Q: AS A WRITER, YOU'VE TRAVELED TO SCHOOLS AROUND THE COUNTRY. HOW HAS BEING A TEENAGER CHANGED OVER THE YEARS SINCE SPEAK PUBLISHED, AND WHAT MAKES YOU HOPEFUL FOR THE YOUTH OF TODAY? A: It is much harder to be a teen now than in 1999. Much of this is due to the rise of bullying on social media and the availability of pornography, which is how many young men learn about sex if their parents are not willing to talk about it. On the other hand, our culture has become slightly more accepting of LGBTQIA teens, though this varies dramatically from region to region. There are also more opportunities and support for the development of friendships instead of all adolescent relationships being framed in terms of potential sexual interactions. We've opened a few doors, but we have far to go. Q: IF YOU WERE IN HIGH SCHOOL NOW, WHAT WOULD YOU WANT YOUR TEACHERS TO KNOW? A: I wish that my teachers would have looked beyond the surface of a girl who couldn't afford fashionable clothes. I wish they understood the signs of trauma. I wish they didn't support the jock-bro culture. I wish they would have been the leaders and the mentors we all needed them to be. My French teacher and a gym teacher were the ones who saw me. I owe my life to them. <D -.J 00 0 O'l -.J 0 0 � 0 * "Necessary for every home, school, -.J and public library." -Kirkus Reviews, starred review * "Fervent and deafening." -Booklist, starred review * "Powerful." -Publishers Weekly, starred review * "A testament to the healing power of shared stories." - The Horn Book, starred review Featuring 347 Industry-First Reviews of Fiction, Nonfiction, Children'sand YA Books KIRKUSVOL. LXXXVII, NO. 5 | 1 MARCH 2019 REVIEWS Special Coverage of Women Writers Who Demand to Be Understood on Their Own Terms from the editor’s desk: Chairman Welcome to the Second Woman Issue HERBERT SIMON President & Publisher BY MEGAN LABRISE MARC WINKELMAN # Chief Executive Officer MEG LABORDE KUEHN [email protected] Editor-in-Chief As 2018 Kirkus Prize winner Rebecca Solnit notes in the New CLAIBORNE SMITH [email protected] Republic, women’s anger became a red-hot publishing trend in 2018. Vice President of Marketing SARAH KALINA Assessing Rebecca Traister’s Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power [email protected] Managing/Nonfiction Editor of Women’s Anger, Soraya Chemaly’s Rage Becomes Her: The Power of ERIC LIEBETRAU , and Brittney Cooper’s [email protected] Women’s Anger Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Fiction Editor LAURIE MUCHNICK Discovers Her Superpower, Solnit identifies a new era with a particular [email protected] Children’s Editor form of outrage: “Much of the anger discussed in all these books,” VICKY SMITH she writes, “comes from being thwarted—from the inability to com- [email protected] Young Adult Editor Megan Labrise LAURA SIMEON mand respect, equality, control over one’s body and destiny, or from [email protected] witnessing the oppression of other women.” Staff Writer MEGAN LABRISE At Kirkus, we believe women who dare to push beyond the bounds of cultural con- [email protected] Vice President of Kirkus Indie scription to tell their stories, sanctioned or not, deserve to be widely read and celebrated. KAREN SCHECHNER [email protected] Our second Woman Issue features interviews with 13 audacious authors, including short Senior Indie Editor DAVID RAPP story writer Carianne Leung (That Time I Loved You), fantasy writer Elizabeth Bear (Ances [email protected] Indie Editor tral Night), memoirist T Kira Madden (Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls), middle-grade MYRA FORSBERG [email protected] novelist Padma Venkatraman ( ), and friends and co-authors René Watson The Bridge Home Indie Editorial Assistant KATERINA PAPPAS and Ellen Hagan (Watch Us Rise). All demand to be understood on their own terms, which [email protected] Editorial Assistant is not easy to do in a society that tells you not to be “too fat, too slutty, too loud,” too any CHELSEA ENNEN , really. (Thank you, Anne Helen Petersen.) [email protected] thing Mysteries Editor “You internalize your culture, you become an extension of your culture,” Mallory THOMAS LEITCH Contributing Editor O’Meara, author of The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy GREGORY McNAMEE Copy Editor of Milicent Patrick, tells Gerald Bartell in an interview on p. 70. “It’s difficult to stand back BETSY JUDKINS Designer and say, This is not acceptable.” ALEX HEAD Nevertheless, O’Meara persisted, and an “idiosyncratic, much-needed biography,” as Director of Kirkus Editorial LAUREN BAILEY Kirkus’ reviewer puts it, was born. So, too, did Aida Salazar, author of The Moon Within, [email protected] Production Editor “one of the few children’s books to straightforwardly discuss the biological and emotional CATHERINE BRESNER [email protected] changes that come with puberty and how fraught that can be for a young girl,” Alex Heim- Creative Lead ARDEN PIACENZA bach writes in an interview on p. 96. [email protected] Website and Software Developer “We live in such a puritanical society that women’s menstruation, breastfeeding, PERCY PEREZ women’s bodies are seen negatively or hypersexualized,” Salazar says, “and so I wanted [email protected] Advertising Director MONIQUE STENSRUD to reframe that conversation and wanted to make sure that we allow children to have this [email protected] Controller opportunity for exploration and for wonder and for acceptance of their own beauty.” MICHELLE GONZALES We hope you’ll see the Woman Issue as an opportunity to explore what it means to [email protected] for customer service identify as female in today’s world: the beauty, the wonder, the daring—and the anger. or subscription questions, please call 1-800-316-9361 Megan Labrise is a staff writer and the cohost of the Kirkus podcast, Fully Booked. Cover photo courtesy Lanecia Rouse 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 Cover design by Advertising Opportunities: www.kirkusreviews.com/about/advertising- Newsletters: www.kirkusreviews.com/subscription/newsletter/add Arden Piacenza opportunities 2 | 1 march 2019 | from the editor’s desk | kirkus.com | you can now purchase books online at kirkus.com contents the woman issue fiction young adult INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS ...........................................................4 INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS .......................................................144 REVIEWS ...............................................................................................4 REVIEWS ...........................................................................................144 EDITOR’S NOTE.....................................................................................6 EDITOR’S NOTE.................................................................................146 INTERVIEW: CARRIANNE LEUNG ...................................................14 INTERVIEW: J. ALBERT MANN .......................................................150 INTERVIEW: ELIZABETH BEAR ........................................................18 INTERVIEW: JULIE BERRY ...............................................................152 INTERVIEW: MIRIAM TOEWS ...........................................................22 INTERVIEW: RENÉE WATSON & ELLEN HAGAN .........................154 LIST: 5 WOMEN YOU SHOULD BE READING ................................ 26 LIST: 5 WOMEN YOU SHOULD BE READING ...............................158 MYSTERY .............................................................................................46 SHELF SPACE: BOOKWOMAN .......................................................162 SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY ......................................................... 52 indie ROMANCE ........................................................................................... 54 INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS ........................................................163 nonfiction REVIEWS ............................................................................................163 INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS ......................................................... 60 EDITOR’S NOTE................................................................................. 164 REVIEWS ............................................................................................. 60 FIELD NOTES.....................................................................................186 EDITOR’S NOTE................................................................................... 62 APPRECIATIONS: THE JOY LUCK CLUB TURNS 30 ..................... 187 INTERVIEW: T KIRA MADDEN .........................................................66 INTERVIEW: