Top-shelf historical fiction delivered with wit and compassion.
Two women witness the horrors of World War II via a snack truck.
Pulitzer Prize and NBCC Award finalist Urrea’s remarkable, elegantly written novel focuses on the Red Cross’ little-known Clubmobile Corps, which during World War II was charged with bringing coffee, doughnuts, and good company to weary GIs. The women had no medical training and were often condescended to as “Donut Dollies,” but because they were stationed in the heart of battle, they played no small part in improving morale and required a steely resolve of their own. Irene Woodward, who’s escaped New York and an abusive fiance, and Dorothy Dunford, who’s left her family and failing farm in Indiana, are paired together in a massive truck that, across the novel, heads from England to France and Germany in 1944 and 1945. En route, they witness some of the worst the post–D-Day European theater has to offer, from bombs to snipers to death camps; during lulls, the two fend off their share of harassment as well. (It’s all a recipe for PTSD and overwhelming for many; the Clubmobile was designed to be operated by three women, but so many drop out there’s a running gag about an unnamed “Third Girl in the Truck.”) Irene, artsy and romantic, has an opposites-attract rapport with the no-nonsense Dorothy, which Urrea plays for both humor and pathos, but he stresses how unified they are in absorbing the constant surprises and tragedies of warfare; a sunny retreat to Cannes is followed by a trek to Buchenwald. This material is personal for Urrea, whose mother served in the Clubmobile Corps, and a few sentimental notes slip into the story. But there’s plenty of grit, detail, and twists that make for both a fine page-turner and an evocation of war’s often cruel randomness.
Top-shelf historical fiction delivered with wit and compassion.Pub Date: May 30, 2023
ISBN: 9780316265850
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: April 10, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.
A love story about a life of second chances.
In Nassau, in the Bahamas, casino detective Vincent LaPorta grills Alfie Logan, who’d come up a winner three times in a row at the roulette table and walked away with $2 million. “How did you do it?” asks the detective. Alfie calmly denies cheating. You wired all the money to a Gianna Rule, LaPorta says. Why? To explain, Alfie produces a composition book with the words “For the Boss, to Be Read Upon My Death” written on the cover. Read this for answers, Alfie suggests, calling it a love story. His mother had passed along to him a strange trait: He can say “Twice!” and go back to a specific time and place to have a do-over. But it only works once for any particular moment, and then he must live with the new consequences. He can only do this for himself and can’t prevent anyone from dying. Alfie regularly uses his power—failing to impress a girl the first time, he finds out more about her, goes back in time, and presto! She likes him. The premise is of course not credible—LaPorta doesn’t buy it either—but it’s intriguing. Most people would probably love to go back and unsay something. The story’s focus is on Alfie’s love for Gianna and whether it’s requited, unrequited, or both. In any case, he’s obsessed with her. He’s a good man, though, an intelligent person with ordinary human failings and a solid moral compass. Albom writes in a warm, easy style that transports the reader to a world of second chances and what-ifs, where spirituality lies close to the surface but never intrudes on the story. Though a cynic will call it sappy, anyone who is sick to their core from the daily news will enjoy this escape from reality.
Have tissues ready as you read this. A small package will do.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780062406682
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 18, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
A heartbreaking, laugh-provoking, and absolutely Ephron-esque look at the beauty and fragility of everyday life.
A woman faces a health crisis and obsesses over a local accident in this wonderful follow-up to Sandwich (2024).
Newman begins her latest with a quote from Nora Ephron: “Death is a sniper. It strikes people you love, people you like, people you know—it’s everywhere. You could be next. But then you turn out not to be. But then again, you could be.” It sets an appropriate tone for a story that is just as full of death and dread as it is laughter. Two years after the events of Sandwich, Rocky is back home in Western Massachusetts and happily surrounded by family—her daughter, Willa, lives with her and her husband, Nick, while applying to Ph.D. programs; her widowed father, Mort, has moved into the in-law apartment behind their house. When a young man who graduated from high school with Rocky’s son, Jamie, is hit by a train, Rocky finds herself spiraling as she thinks about how close the tragedy came to her own family. She’s also freaking out about a mysterious rash her dermatologist can’t explain. Both instances are tailor-made for internet research and stalking. As Rocky obsessively googles her symptoms and finds only bad news (“Here’s what’s true about the Internet: very infrequently do people log on with their good news. Gosh, they don’t write, I had this weird rash on my forearm? And it turned out to be completely nothing!”), she also compulsively checks the Facebook page of the accident victim’s mother. Newman excels at showing how sorrow and joy coexist in everyday life. She masterfully balances a modern exploration of grief with truly laugh-out-loud lines (one passage about the absurdity of collecting a stool sample and delivering it to the doctor stands out). As Rocky deals with the byzantine frustrations of the medical system, she also has to learn, once more, how to see her children, husband, father, and herself as fully flawed and lovable humans.
A heartbreaking, laugh-provoking, and absolutely Ephron-esque look at the beauty and fragility of everyday life.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780063453913
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 17, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2025
PERSPECTIVES
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