Featuring 392 Industry-First Reviews of Fiction, Nonfiction, Children'sand YA books KIRKUSVOL. LXXXVII, NO. 1 | 1 JANUARY 2019 REVIEWS Lili Anolik is the unofficial champion of Eve Babitz’s literary canon and a crucial element of Babitz’s resurgence. Her nonfiction debut, Hollywood’s Eve, doesn’t fit the mold of a biography—it’s a bona fide love story. p. 60 from the editor’s desk: Chairman Trends We Hope Disappear in 2019 HERBERT SIMON President & Publisher BY CLAIBORNE SMITH MARC WINKELMAN # Chief Executive Officer MEG LABORDE KUEHN [email protected] Photo courtesy Michael Thad Carter courtesy Photo Editor-in-Chief All of us at Kirkus are looking forward to the great books that are com- CLAIBORNE SMITH ing our way in 2019; check out our editors’ columns in each section of [email protected] this issue to learn which particular books they’re most excited about. But Vice President of Marketing SARAH KALINA before you do that, let’s say goodbye to 2018 by noting a few publishing [email protected] trends we hope disappear in 2019. (We know they won’t actually disappear Managing/Nonfiction Editor ERIC LIEBETRAU this year, but hope springs eternal.) Happy New Year! [email protected] Fiction Editor Laura Simeon, Young Adult Editor: I’d like to see tan people go away. I’m LAURIE MUCHNICK all for the kind of diversity where a character’s race is not the entire focus [email protected] Children’s Editor of their lives, not a problem that they grapple with, and not an indirect VICKY SMITH way of showing what a great, tolerant person the white main character is. [email protected] I’m fine with ambiguity—as a biracial person, I appreciate the way racial Young Adult Editor Claiborne Smith LAURA SIMEON ambiguity forces us to confront our discomfort around blurred boundaries. [email protected] I fully support people writing outside their own ethnicity or any other identity; if they don’t do Staff Writer MEGAN LABRISE their homework and the portrayal is tone-deaf, I also support people speaking up in response. [email protected] That’s how it goes when you write for public consumption. What I don’t like, and have seen far Vice President of Kirkus Indie KAREN SCHECHNER too much of this year, are nominally diverse books that actually reinforce a white default. These [email protected] are books that maybe, probably, perhaps include diversity….The usual cues that most characters Senior Indie Editor are assumed white are all there (references to blonde hair, blue eyes, etc., although these are not DAVID RAPP [email protected] traits confined to people who identify as white), but then there is a mysteriously “tan” character. Indie Editor Or one who has a possibly “ethnic” name or hair. Or one whose speech patterns and manner- MYRA FORSBERG isms evoke common stereotypes of particular ethnic groups. But search though the reader might, [email protected] Indie Editorial Assistant there is nothing conclusive to be found. It’s all very puzzling—and, worse, it evokes the damaging KATERINA PAPPAS color-blind mindset that sees race as the difference that dare not speak its name. Otherwise, why [email protected] Editorial Assistant be so coy? CHELSEA ENNEN [email protected] Gregory McNamee, Contributing Editor: Let’s see. There’s an efficiency paradox. A Jewish Mysteries Editor American paradox. A goodness paradox. An inequality paradox. Somewhere or another, the word THOMAS LEITCH Contributing Editor “paradox” has come to be an ever so slightly gussied up synonym for “problem” when it really means GREGORY McNAMEE something that on its face seems absurd but turns out to be true—or, conversely, something that Copy Editor seems on its face to be true but that turns out to be absurd. Here’s one good use, courtesy of the BETSY JUDKINS authors of The Mind Club: “Trying to perceive your dead mind is paradoxical, because you have to Designer perceive a state that is incapable of perception—which is impossible while you are currently per- ALEX HEAD Director of Kirkus Editorial ceiving.” That’s just so. In 2019, oh writers of book titles, let’s reserve the word “paradox” for the LAUREN BAILEY paradoxical, using “problem” for the problematical, “puzzle” for the puzzling, “question” for the [email protected] Production Editor questionable, and so forth. CATHERINE BRESNER [email protected] Eric Liebetrau, Nonfiction and Managing Editor: I only have one trend Creative Lead I wish would disappear, and I am well-aware that it is a complete fantasy. ARDEN PIACENZA [email protected] However, I am going to put it to the universe and cross my fingers, knowing Website and Software Developer that even if it doesn’t disappear entirely, perhaps it can decrease by at least PERCY PEREZ a small percentage: No more books about Trump and his minions. Good, [email protected] Advertising Director bad, ugly, and otherwise, I simply can’t handle the deluge. From early 2017 MONIQUE STENSRUD until the end of this year, I feel like I lost a chunk of my soul from read- [email protected] Controller ing seemingly endless lists, opinions, and analyses that only reiterate what MICHELLE GONZALES any thoughtful, ethically balanced person knows: Our president is a corrupt, [email protected] morally bankrupt grifter who is decidedly unfit for office. Go pick up Amy for customer service or subscription questions, Siskind’s The List (2018) and see if you can make it through without needing please call 1-800-316-9361 a martini or three. Then realize that book chronicles just the first year of this national nightmare…. No more books about Trump in 2019, please Myra Forsberg, Indie Editor: Many readers cherish the daring cats and boisterous dogs who embark on perilous adventures in picture books. Cover photo by Continued on p. 4 Michael Benabib 2 | 1 january 2019 | from the editor’s desk | kirkus.com | you can now purchase books online at kirkus.com contents fiction The Kirkus Star is awarded INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS ........................................................... 5 REVIEWS ............................................................................................... 5 to books of remarkable EDITOR’S NOTE.....................................................................................6 merit, as determined by the CHIGOZIE OBIOMA’S ORIGINAL NEW NOVEL .............................. 14 LYNDSAY FAYE’S BOOK IS A PARAGON OF A THRILLER .............24 impartial editors of Kirkus. MYSTERY ..............................................................................................33 SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY ......................................................... 39 ROMANCE ...........................................................................................40 nonfiction INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS .........................................................44 REVIEWS .............................................................................................44 EDITOR’S NOTE...................................................................................46 ON THE COVER: LILI ANOLIK .......................................................... 60 RENIQUA ALLEN’S REVEALING DREAM ........................................66 children’s INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS ......................................................... 81 REVIEWS ............................................................................................. 81 EDITOR’S NOTE................................................................................... 82 JONAH WINTER MEETS THE KING ................................................. 88 BOARD & BABY BOOKS .................................................................... 99 young adult INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS ........................................................139 REVIEWS ............................................................................................139 EDITOR’S NOTE................................................................................. 140 MELISSA DE LA CRUZ’S SUREFIRE NEW HIT ..............................146 Greek mythology collides with the lives of SHELF SPACE: UPSHUR STREET BOOKS ......................................156 four mortals swept up in the drama of the two world wars in Julie Berry’s transport- indie ive, romantic epic. Read the review on p. 141. INDEX TO STARRED REVIEWS ........................................................157 REVIEWS ............................................................................................157 EDITOR’S NOTE................................................................................. 158 Don’t wait on the mail for reviews! You can read pre-publication reviews as they are released on kirkus.com even before they are published in the magazine. INDIE Q&A: CHRISTOPHER GREYSON .........................................168 — You can also access the current issue and back issues of Kirkus Reviews on our APPRECIATIONS: KINGSLEY AMIS POURS A DRINK ..................183 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 emailing [email protected]. | kirkus.com | contents | 1 january 2019 | 3 While these escapades appeal to pet owners (I certainly love any tale with a gray-and-white feline who resembles my tabby), the genre needs fewer of these familiar stars teaching children worthy lessons. Some of the most striking illustrated works feature wild animals: lions and tigers and bears—and elephants and giraffes—in their natural habitats. Several weave wel- come