Reviewed by Kelly on
Too intellectual, or wanting to appear intellectual, for my liking.
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 6 December, 2013: Finished reading
- 6 December, 2013: Reviewed
Cartwheel
by Jennifer duBois
"Written with the riveting storytelling and moral seriousness of authors like Emma Donoghue, Adam Johnson, Ann Patchett, and Curtis Sittenfeld, Cartwheel is a suspenseful and haunting novel of an American foreign exchange student arrested for murder, and a father trying to hold his family together. When Lily Hayes arrives in Buenos Aires for her semester abroad, she is enchanted by everything she encounters: the colorful buildings, the street food, the handsome, elusive man next door. Her studious roommate Katy is a bit of a bore, but Lily didn't come to Argentina to hang out with other Americans. Five weeks later, Katy is found brutally murdered in their shared home, and Lily is the prime suspect. But who is Lily Hayes? It depends on who's asking. As the case takes shape--revealing deceptions, secrets, and suspicious DNA--Lily appears alternately sinister and guileless through the eyes of those around her: the media, her family, the man who loves her and the man who seeks her conviction. With mordant wit and keen emotional insight, Cartwheel offers a prismatic investigation of the ways we decide what to see--and to believe--in one another and ourselves. Jennifer duBois's debut novel, A Partial History of Lost Causes, was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Fiction and was honored by the National Book Foundation's 5 Under 35 program. In Cartwheel, duBois delivers a novel of propulsive psychological suspense and rare moral nuance. Who is Lily Hayes? What happened to her roommate? No two readers will agree. Cartwheel will keep you guessing until the final page, and its questions about how much we really know about ourselves will linger well beyond. Praise for A Partial History of Lost Causes "Astonishingly beautiful and brainy. [a] stunning novel."--O: The Oprah Magazine "A thrilling debut. duBois writes with haunting richness and fierce intelligence. Full of bravado, insight, and clarity."--Elle "DuBois is precise and unsentimental. She moves with a magician's control between points of view, continents, histories, and sympathies."--The New Yorker "I can't remember reading another novel--at least not recently--that's both incredibly intelligent and also emotionally engaging."--Nancy Pearl, NPR "A real page-turner. a psychological thriller of great nuance and complexity."--The Dallas Morning News "Hilarious and heartbreaking and a triumph of the imagination."--Gary Shteyngart"--
"When Lily Hayes arrives in Buenos Aires for her semester abroad, she is enchanted by everything she encounters: the colorful surroundings, the street food, the elusive guy next door. Her studious roommate Katy is a bit of a bore, but Lily didn't come to Argentina to hang out with other Americans. Five weeks later, Katy is found brutally murdered in their shared home, and Lily is the prime suspect. But who is Lily Hayes? It depends on who's asking. As the case takes shape--revealing deceptions, secrets, and suspicious DNA--Lily appears alternately sinister and guileless through the eyes of those around her. With mordant wit and keen emotional insight, Cartwheel offers a prismatic investigation of the ways we decide what to see--and to believe--in each other and ourselves"--
Too intellectual, or wanting to appear intellectual, for my liking.