the means book review

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by Amy Fusselman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 6, 2022

A trenchant comedy of class and the way we live now.

You, too, can have a beach house in the Hamptons...sort of.

"I used to think aliveness was a binary: a person was either alive or dead. But now I know that aliveness is more like something on a continuum, like the pain scale. And I want to be more alive. I want to be as alive as possible. My beach house would help me do that." Shelly Means, nonworking mother of two, wife of a struggling voice-over narrator, denizen of a part of Manhattan she calls the "discount caftan and incense district," is obsessed. Lucky for her, the woman who is providing online cognitive behavior therapy for her anger issues (Shelly threw her water bottle at the school board president) is also a real estate broker and knows just the tick-infested, nonwaterfront piece of land in a part of the Hamptons she and George can afford, once they sell their raccoon-infested lake house. And if they construct the house out of used shipping containers, give up all but the most basic amenities, and take out a loan, they may even be able to build on it. With its deadpan absurdity, pithy prose, and moral je ne sais quoi, Fusselman's latest will appeal to fans of Marcy Dermansky. With its sapient talking dog, readers of Susan Coll. And with its satire of the particular hypocrisy of the Hamptons, including homeowners associations, graft, and garbage and recycling practices, Maria Semple. Running jokes abound, involving, among other things, raccoons, Japanese toilets, nutrition bars called Generosity, Vulnerability, and Caring, and seltzer called Loving. We may be entering a golden age of the comic novel, surely one of the best possible outcomes of this desperate moment in history. Take it from Shelly's teenage son: “If you need money, you should write fiction. That’s what Roberto Bolaño did after he had a family and wanted to make money: he turned to fiction.”

Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2022

ISBN: 978-0-06-324871-7

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Mariner Books

Review Posted Online: July 7, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2022

LITERARY FICTION | GENERAL FICTION

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New York Times Bestseller

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 6, 2024

A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.

A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.

When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.

Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024

ISBN: 9781250178633

Page Count: 480

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023

FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | GENERAL FICTION | HISTORICAL FICTION

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by Kristin Hannah

BOOK TO SCREEN

by Percival Everett ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 19, 2024

One of the noblest characters in American literature gets a novel worthy of him.

Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as told from the perspective of a more resourceful and contemplative Jim than the one you remember.

This isn’t the first novel to reimagine Twain’s 1885 masterpiece, but the audacious and prolific Everett dives into the very heart of Twain’s epochal odyssey, shifting the central viewpoint from that of the unschooled, often credulous, but basically good-hearted Huck to the more enigmatic and heroic Jim, the Black slave with whom the boy escapes via raft on the Mississippi River. As in the original, the threat of Jim’s being sold “down the river” and separated from his wife and daughter compels him to run away while figuring out what to do next. He's soon joined by Huck, who has faked his own death to get away from an abusive father, ramping up Jim’s panic. “Huck was supposedly murdered and I’d just run away,” Jim thinks. “Who did I think they would suspect of the heinous crime?” That Jim can, as he puts it, “[do] the math” on his predicament suggests how different Everett’s version is from Twain’s. First and foremost, there's the matter of the Black dialect Twain used to depict the speech of Jim and other Black characters—which, for many contemporary readers, hinders their enjoyment of his novel. In Everett’s telling, the dialect is a put-on, a manner of concealment, and a tactic for survival. “White folks expect us to sound a certain way and it can only help if we don’t disappoint them,” Jim explains. He also discloses that, in violation of custom and law, he learned to read the books in Judge Thatcher’s library, including Voltaire and John Locke, both of whom, in dreams and delirium, Jim finds himself debating about human rights and his own humanity. With and without Huck, Jim undergoes dangerous tribulations and hairbreadth escapes in an antebellum wilderness that’s much grimmer and bloodier than Twain’s. There’s also a revelation toward the end that, however stunning to devoted readers of the original, makes perfect sense.

Pub Date: March 19, 2024

ISBN: 9780385550369

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2024

LITERARY FICTION | HISTORICAL FICTION | GENERAL FICTION

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by Percival Everett

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The Means : Book summary and reviews of The Means by Amy Fusselman

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by Amy Fusselman

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Published Sep 2022 256 pages Genre: Literary Fiction Publication Information

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About this book

Book summary.

The debut novel from "wholly original" ( Vogue ) memoirist Amy Fusselman, a tragicomic family saga that skewers contemporary issues of money, motherhood, and class through a well-to-do woman's quest to buy a Hamptons beach house.

Shelly Means, a wealthy stay-at-home mom and disgraced former PTA president, is poised to get the one thing in life she really wants: a beach house in the Hamptons. Who would have guessed that Shelly, the product of frugal Midwesterners, or her husband George, an unrepentant thrift shopper, would ever be living among such swells? But Shelly believes it's possible. It might be a very small house, and it might be in the least-fancy part of the Hamptons. But Shelly has a vision board, an architect, and a plan. But what should be a simple real estate transaction quickly goes awry as Shelly's new neighbors disapprove of her proposed shipping container house at the same time that George's lucrative work as a VoiceOver artist dries up. But Shelly is dogged. She knows how to go into beast mode. But will it ever be enough to realize her beach house dreams? A novel of real estate, ambition, family, and money from "one of our best interrogators of how we live now, and how we should live" (Dave Eggers), The Means is also a fantastical, fast-moving and very funny exploration of class, wealth, and the value of work.

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Reader reviews.

"With its deadpan absurdity, pithy prose and moral je ne sais quoi, Fusselman's latest will appeal to fans of Marcy Dermansky....With its satire of the particular hypocrisy of the Hamptons, including homeowners associations, graft, and garbage and recycling practices, Maria Semple....We may be entering a golden age of the comic novel, surely one of the best possible outcomes of this desperate moment in history." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "With Shelly, Fusselman creates a character determined to see her vision to completion without regard for impediments of any kind, and the supporting roles (like a therapist who's also a real estate broker and party planner) will leave readers laughing. Recommended to anyone who enjoys humorous fiction." - Library Journal "This charming novel bears the Fusselman touch that makes all of her books so brilliant: touching, uncanny, and deceptively simple observations that dismantle complex assumptions about the world." - Sarah Manguso, author of Very Cold People "Amy Fusselman's The Means is an absolute delight! Anyone who's ever wanted more than they had—so, all of us—will be unable to turn away from this wise, funny, page-turning story of relationships, motherhood, and real estate ambitions." - Jessica Anya Blau, author of Mary Jane "Location, location, location: that is the real estate chant. In Amy Fusselman's The Means those words are intermingled with laugh, laugh, laugh. Fusselman is a prescient observer chronicling one couple's desire to live near where the other half live. She deftly captures the absurdity of the everyday and the American quest for more. The Means is funny, playful and at times painfully accurate." - A.M. Homes, author of The Unfolding and May We Be Forgiven

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Author Information

Amy fusselman.

Amy Fusselman is the author of four nonfiction books: Idiophone; Savage Park: A Meditation on Play, Space, and Risk for Americans Who Are Nervous, Distracted, and Afraid to Die; 8; and The Pharmacist's Mate . Her writing has appeared in the Washington Post , the New York Times , the Atlantic , McSweeney's , and many other outlets. She lives with her family in New York City where she teaches creative writing at New York University.

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The Means by Amy Fusselman [Book Review]

Book Information on The Means by Amy Fusselman

Honestly, I read The Means in about a day and a half. It wasn’t really the subject matter, or the characters that kept me reading… it was the storytelling, and the obsessive behavior of the main character that I found endearing.

This post may contain affiliate links. I’ll receive a small commission through your purchase, and I’m so grateful!

Table of Contents

Shelly Means is a stay-at-home mom. Her husband makes pretty good money, and she’s been on the PTA for years. That is, until she disgraces herself with the PTA, and her husband loses a lucrative voice-acting job.

Shelly decides that the one thing she wants in life, the one thing that will give her life meaning and contentment, is a beach house in the Hamptons. She sets her sights on having her house, despite lack of money, lack of planning, and especially lack of understanding from the homeowner’s association.

The Means is a satirical look at what it means to be rich and what it means to have everything you want.

Thank you to Netgalley for a free copy of The Means by Amy Fusselman, in return for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

My Thoughts

Ok, my review won’t be very long on this one, because it’s seriously way too hard not to give spoilers for The Means . I will say, however, that I really liked the book. It was such a funny story. Shelly’s obsession with getting her beach house, and the lengths she goes to in order to get it, are pretty insane. Funny, but insane.

Even though her husband struggles to provide for them, Shelly is so determined to elevate their status through a “house in the hamptons” that she ignores almost everything he says. She hires a realtor/architect who convinces her to use storage crates (you know, those big metal pods on the barges?). While she thinks it a great idea, the history of the containers means way too much to her. If they didn’t come from a fancy location, and hold something really interesting, she doesn’t want to use them to create her dream house.

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Recommendation

Seriously, you should read The Means . One, it’s funny. Two, it will honestly make you feel better about your own life. I struggle to market my business some days, and I struggle to write blog posts on time most days, but at least I’m not struggling to build the perfect house on the beach made out of shipping containers.

The Means by Amy Fusselman is on Amazon!

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The Means: A Novel Kindle Edition

" The Means is such a fast-paced, breezy comedic novel that you may find yourself surprised that Fusselman deftly and directly leads you to existential dilemmas and the absurdity of capitalism and striving for more." – The Millions

Shelly Means, a stay-at-home mom and disgraced former PTA president, is poised to get the one thing in life she really wants: a beach house in the Hamptons. Surely, once she has her beach house, Shelly will at last feel at peace, in control, and content. It might be a very small house, and it might be in the least-fancy part of the Hamptons, but Shelly is hell-bent on achieving this idea of paradise.

But what should be a simple real estate transaction quickly goes awry as Shelly’s new neighbors disapprove of her proposed shipping container house at the same time that her spouse George’s lucrative work as a VoiceOver artist dries up. When George wants to cancel the beach house, Shelly goes deeper down the rabbit hole of capitalism: it’s an investment property! It's a community! It’s a place for their children to thrive! And, for a woman whose labor has buoyed her family for years, this beach house might just be Shelly’s last stand.

The debut novel from “one of our best interrogators of how we live now, and how we should live” (Dave Eggers), The Means is a comedy about the suffering inherent in desire, capitalist delusion, and the value of unpaid labor.

Print length 247 pages
Language English
Sticky notes On Kindle Scribe
Publisher Mariner Books
Publication date September 6, 2022
File size 4446 KB
Page Flip Enabled
Word Wise Enabled
Enhanced typesetting Enabled
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Editorial Reviews

An absolute delight! Anyone who's ever wanted more than they had--so, all of us--will be unable to turn away from this wise, funny, page-turning story of relationships, motherhood, and real estate ambitions.

Deftly captures the absurdity of the everyday and the American quest for more . The Means is funny, playful, and at times painfully accurate.

With its deadpan absurdity, pithy prose, and...satire of the particular hypocrisy of the Hamptons...running jokes abound. We may be entering a golden age of the comic novel, surely one of the best possible outcomes of this desperate moment in history...A trenchant comedy of class and the way we live now.

About the Author

Product details.

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B09NJMNJH8
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Mariner Books (September 6, 2022)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 6, 2022
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 4446 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 247 pages
Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 0063248727
#429 in Women's Humorous Fiction
#1,685 in Women's Literary Fiction
#2,436 in Mothers & Children Fiction

About the author

Amy fusselman.

Amy Fusselman is the author of five books. Her latest, The Mean$, is her first novel. Fusselman’s previous four books, all nonfiction, have been translated into several languages. Her work has been nominated for The Believer Book Award and the University of Iowa's Krause Essay Prize. Her articles and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, and many other places. She lives in New York City with her family and teaches creative writing at New York University.

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Book Review: The Means by Amy Fusselman

The is the story about the Means family. They live in NYC and are the proud owners of a plot of land in the Hamptons. Their land is fairly small, triangular, and infested with ticks. That won’t stop Shelly and her husband George from moving forward with their plan to build a beach house.

As one would expect, Shelly and George are not on the same page about the plans for beach house. George is practical and budget conscious. Shelly, on the other hand, has a vision board that includes every luxury item she could think of. Especially a Japanese toilet. Ever since their trip to Tokyo years ago, she’s been pining for a Japanese toilet and is fixated on getting one for the beach house.

Can the Means manifest their beach house dreams into reality? As a one-income family living in NYC, with two kids in private school, they’ll have to stretch their budget. Of course, on top of that, everything seems to get in the way of their plans, including the HOA board. Not one to give up easily, Shelly is determined to do whatever it takes to build the beach house.

This is a character-driven story that started out strong, but then fizzled. At the beginning, I liked the quirky characters, snarky dialogue, and various characters Shelly enlisted to help move the beach house plans forward. The story seemed to be poised to be an entertaining and full of wry humor. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.

Here’s what I didn’t like:

The talking dog. Yes, Twix (the family dog) can talk to Shelly. I could’ve done without that.
Everyone Shelly encounters is identified by race. I found it odd, since it wasn’t relevant to the plot or storyline.
The book is plagued by non sequiturs about random subjects, social issues, and opinions. These are all delivered by the talking dog.

As for the ending of the story, I actually liked it. It’s fitting, funny, and very Shelly. Overall, I’m glad I gave this book a try, even though as it turns out I only liked the beginning and the end of the story 😏.

I listened to the audiobook and thought the narrator did a fantastic job. If you want to give this book a try, I recommend the audiobook.

Have you read this book yet?

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Talking animals can be annyoing sometimes. I’m glad you liked the beginning and the end.

Thanks! It was an interesting one, though not quite what I expected.

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By Eric Foner

March 8, 2022

WAYS AND MEANS Lincoln and His Cabinet and the Financing of the Civil War By Roger Lowenstein

War, it has been said, is the midwife of revolution, an adage that certainly applies to the American Civil War. That conflict not only destroyed slavery, the foundation of Southern society, but also brought into being a newly empowered national state. Before the war the federal government had few responsibilities other than delivering the mail and dealing with Native Americans and foreign countries. States and localities were the loci of political authority. But the war vastly increased national power, economic as well as military. The federal government raised and spent unprecedented amounts of money and eagerly promoted economic development. The war laid the foundation for the American industrial leviathan of the late 19th century and created an enduring alliance between industrialists, financiers, the Republican Party and the government in Washington.

A vast literature exists on nearly every aspect of the Civil War. But Roger Lowenstein’s “Ways and Means,” an account of the Union’s financial policies, examines a subject long overshadowed by military narratives. Wars cost money as well as lives, and the Civil War required what Lowenstein calls “gargantuan” sums. In the hands of a less skilled author, the litany of bonds, notes, loans and forms of currency that he discusses could become mind-numbing. But Lowenstein is a lucid stylist, able to explain financial matters to readers who lack specialized knowledge. Perhaps he can write a book that helps laypersons like me understand recent innovations such as cryptocurrency and nonfungible tokens.

Preoccupied with the fate of slavery and events on the battlefield, Abraham Lincoln mostly left fiscal matters to Congress and his cabinet. Lowenstein’s key actors are hardly household names. They include William Pitt Fessenden , chair of the Senate Committee on Finance; Elbridge G. Spaulding of the House Ways and Means Committee; and especially Salmon P. Chase , secretary of the Treasury. Best known before the war for his commitment to freedom and equal rights for Black Americans, Chase is often denigrated by historians because of his massive ego (his theology, one contemporary remarked, was faulty: He thought there were four members of the Trinity). When the war began, the country had no common currency. Hundreds of local banks issued notes that circulated as money, while the federal government was required by law to deal only with gold and silver. With far too little specie available to meet wartime needs, the country almost immediately teetered on the edge of bankruptcy. But despite lacking prior experience in fiscal policy, Chase managed to finance the war and revolutionize the banking system.

Essentially, there are three ways to pay for a war: borrowing by selling bonds, levying taxes and printing money. Chase relied on all three. As the war progressed, the government issued hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of bonds, and Chase spent much of his time badgering banks and wealthy investors to purchase them. He made a partial end run around the bankers with the help of the financier Jay Cooke , who employed an army of salesmen to market bonds directly to ordinary Americans, thus enriching himself via commission fees while helping to fill the nation’s coffers.

To raise further sums, Congress increased the tariff to unparalleled heights and imposed taxes — including the nation’s first income tax — on “everything under the sun,” in the words of one Treasury official. But what Lowenstein calls the most revolutionary departure came in 1862, when the federal government began printing “greenbacks,” paper money not redeemable in gold or silver but declared to be legal tender. Debtors, especially farmers, loved the greenbacks, since they could pay mortgages and other obligations in money worth considerably less than what they originally had borrowed. For the same reason creditors like bankers hated the new currency.

Ultimately, Lowenstein writes, Chase and the bankers were “fighting over the definition of money” and who should issue and control it, the government or private institutions. The National Banking Act of 1863, described by Lowenstein as “the most far-reaching financial reform in the country’s history,” authorized the government to charter a new system of banks, which would be required to purchase federal bonds, thus helping to finance the war. But, Lowenstein points out, the law’s official name was An Act to Provide a National Currency — something essential to a modern nation-state. A steep tax drove the money issued by local banks out of existence. By the war’s end, in place of the myriad forms of money previously in circulation there were only two — greenbacks printed by the federal government and the notes of the new national banks.

But the remaking of the financial system was only part of a new orientation of the nation’s economy. With the South no longer represented in Washington, the “scarcely remembered” 37th Congress, which convened in December 1861, enacted an economic agenda long blocked by slave owners. Much of it focused on the future of the West, the issue that had brought on the Civil War. Key initiatives were paid for with public land. The Homestead Act distributed free land to settlers; the Land Grant College Act provided territory to the states to finance new educational institutions; land grants helped to pay for the construction of a transcontinental railroad. Unfortunately, Lowenstein misses an opportunity to probe how all this acreage became “public land” in the first place. He praises the Union’s economic policies for promoting opportunity for “people on the rise.” But for Native Americans, they were a disaster. The free labor vision of a West that was home to railroads, mining companies and millions of family farmers presupposed evicting the region’s Indigenous peoples from their ancestral homelands.

Lowenstein devotes considerably less attention to Southern fiscal policy, but what he does say is scathing. The Confederate government relied far more heavily than the Union on the printing press. Over the course of the war, taxation supplied one-fifth of the federal government’s budget but only 6 percent of the Confederacy’s. The reason lay in the power structure of a slave society. The planters who controlled Southern politics and most of the region’s wealth knew that the burden of taxation would fall primarily on them, and they were not willing to share the pain. Paper money issued by Jefferson Davis’s administration, states and banks flooded the South. (Greenbacks bore Chase’s portrait; Southern currency often depicted slaves at work in cotton fields. The Confederacy was quite candid about what it was fighting for.) Rampant inflation followed, sapping morale, making ordinary economic exchanges difficult and inspiring bread riots in Southern cities. Lowenstein suggests that financial mismanagement may explain Confederate defeat. But as conflicts from the American Revolution to Afghanistan have demonstrated, the side with the greater firepower — military or financial — does not always win a war.

The economic policies of the wartime Union shaped the political conflicts of America’s Gilded Age. With the Republican Party in transition from defender of “free labor” to ally of the financial and industrial elite, the income tax lapsed, Wall Street solidified its hold on the nation’s financial assets, and the wartime tariff, a giant boon to manufacturers, remained in place. To no avail, dissenting groups sought to use the new centralized state for different purposes. The Greenback Party (perhaps the only political party in history named for a piece of currency) unsuccessfully called for increasing the supply of paper money to stimulate the economy during downturns. Populists demanded the nationalization of the railroads and credit system. Whose interests should the new political economy serve? In many ways that debate has never ended.

Eric Foner’s most recent book is “The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution.”

WAYS AND MEANS Lincoln and His Cabinet and the Financing of the Civil War By Roger Lowenstein Illustrated. 448 pp. Penguin Press. $30.

How to Write a Book Review: Awesome Guide

A book review allows students to illustrate the author's intentions of writing the piece, as well as create a criticism of the book — as a whole. In other words, form an opinion of the author's presented ideas. Check out this guide from EssayPro — book review writing service to learn how to write a book review successfully.

What Is a Book Review?

You may prosper, “what is a book review?”. Book reviews are commonly assigned students to allow them to show a clear understanding of the novel. And to check if the students have actually read the book. The essay format is highly important for your consideration, take a look at the book review format below.

Book reviews are assigned to allow students to present their own opinion regarding the author’s ideas included in the book or passage. They are a form of literary criticism that analyzes the author’s ideas, writing techniques, and quality. A book analysis is entirely opinion-based, in relevance to the book. They are good practice for those who wish to become editors, due to the fact, editing requires a lot of criticism.

Book Review Template

The book review format includes an introduction, body, and conclusion.

Introduction
Describe the book cover and title.
Include any subtitles at this stage.
Include the Author’s Name.
Write a brief description of the novel.
Briefly introduce the main points of the body in your book review.
Avoid mentioning any opinions at this time.
Use about 3 quotations from the author’s novel.
Summarize the quotations in your own words.
Mention your own point-of-view of the quotation.
Remember to keep every point included in its own paragraph.
In brief, summarize the quotations.
In brief, summarize the explanations.
Finish with a concluding sentence.
This can include your final opinion of the book.
Star-Rating (Optional).

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How to Write a Book Review: Step-By-Step

Writing a book review is something that can be done with every novel. Book reviews can apply to all novels, no matter the genre. Some genres may be harder than others. On the other hand, the book review format remains the same. Take a look at these step-by-step instructions from our professional writers to learn how to write a book review in-depth.

Step 1: Planning

Create an essay outline which includes all of the main points you wish to summarise in your book analysis. Include information about the characters, details of the plot, and some other important parts of your chosen novel. Reserve a body paragraph for each point you wish to talk about.

Consider these points before writing:

What is the plot of the book? Understanding the plot enables you to write an effective review.
Is the plot gripping? Does the plot make you want to continue reading the novel? Did you enjoy the plot? Does it manage to grab a reader’s attention?
Are the writing techniques used by the author effective? Does the writer imply factors in-between the lines? What are they?
Are the characters believable? Are the characters logical? Does the book make the characters are real while reading?
Would you recommend the book to anyone? The most important thing: would you tell others to read this book? Is it good enough? Is it bad?
What could be better? Keep in mind the quotes that could have been presented better. Criticize the writer.

Step 2: Introduction

Presumably, you have chosen your book. To begin, mention the book title and author’s name. Talk about the cover of the book. Write a thesis statement regarding the fictitious story or non-fictional novel. Which briefly describes the quoted material in the book review.

Step 3: Body

Choose a specific chapter or scenario to summarise. Include about 3 quotes in the body. Create summaries of each quote in your own words. It is also encouraged to include your own point-of-view and the way you interpret the quote. It is highly important to have one quote per paragraph.

Step 4: Conclusion

Write a summary of the summarised quotations and explanations, included in the body paragraphs. After doing so, finish book analysis with a concluding sentence to show the bigger picture of the book. Think to yourself, “Is it worth reading?”, and answer the question in black and white. However, write in-between the lines. Avoid stating “I like/dislike this book.”

Step 5: Rate the Book (Optional)

After writing a book review, you may want to include a rating. Including a star-rating provides further insight into the quality of the book, to your readers. Book reviews with star-ratings can be more effective, compared to those which don’t. Though, this is entirely optional.

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Dive into literary analysis with EssayPro . Our experts can help you craft insightful book reviews that delve deep into the themes, characters, and narratives of your chosen books. Enhance your understanding and appreciation of literature with us.

Writing Tips

Here is the list of tips for the book review:

A long introduction can certainly lower one’s grade: keep the beginning short. Readers don’t like to read the long introduction for any essay style.
It is advisable to write book reviews about fiction: it is not a must. Though, reviewing fiction can be far more effective than writing about a piece of nonfiction
Avoid Comparing: avoid comparing your chosen novel with other books you have previously read. Doing so can be confusing for the reader.
Opinion Matters: including your own point-of-view is something that is often encouraged when writing book reviews.
Refer to Templates: a book review template can help a student get a clearer understanding of the required writing style.
Don’t be Afraid to Criticize: usually, your own opinion isn’t required for academic papers below Ph.D. level. On the other hand, for book reviews, there’s an exception.
Use Positivity: include a fair amount of positive comments and criticism.
Review The Chosen Novel: avoid making things up. Review only what is presented in the chosen book.
Enjoyed the book? If you loved reading the book, state it. Doing so makes your book analysis more personalized.

Writing a book review is something worth thinking about. Professors commonly assign this form of an assignment to students to enable them to express a grasp of a novel. Following the book review format is highly useful for beginners, as well as reading step-by-step instructions. Writing tips is also useful for people who are new to this essay type. If you need a book review or essay, ask our book report writing services ' write paper for me ' and we'll give you a hand asap!

We also recommend that everyone read the article about essay topics . It will help broaden your horizons in writing a book review as well as other papers.

Book Review Examples

Referring to a book review example is highly useful to those who wish to get a clearer understanding of how to review a book. Take a look at our examples written by our professional writers. Click on the button to open the book review examples and feel free to use them as a reference.

Book review

Kenneth Grahame’s ‘The Wind in the Willows’

Kenneth Grahame’s ‘The Wind in the Willows’ is a novel aimed at youngsters. The plot, itself, is not American humor, but that of Great Britain. In terms of sarcasm, and British-related jokes. The novel illustrates a fair mix of the relationships between the human-like animals, and wildlife. The narrative acts as an important milestone in post-Victorian children’s literature.

Book Review

Dr. John’s ‘Pollution’

Dr. John’s ‘Pollution’ consists of 3 major parts. The first part is all about the polluted ocean. The second being about the pollution of the sky. The third part is an in-depth study of how humans can resolve these issues. The book is a piece of non-fiction that focuses on modern-day pollution ordeals faced by both animals and humans on Planet Earth. It also focuses on climate change, being the result of the global pollution ordeal.

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How To Write A Book Review?

What to include in a book review, what is a book review, related articles.

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This delightful children’s picture book pays sweet homage to a particular spot at the narrator’s grandmother’s house: the swing on the front porch. It is upon this swinging bench, with its big red cushion, that the child and his “Ginny” (pronounced like “Guinea”) have together spent so many wonderful times over the years. When he cried and cried as a baby, Ginny wrapped him in a cozy blanket and sang lullabies on that favorite porch swing. During hot summertime, the two would share icy popsicles side by side on the swing. Whenever the child was not feeling well, Ginny would hold him close and dry his tears, sitting with him on the bench swing until everything was better. ... (read more)

Engaging Story

In this colorful children’s book, young readers meet Flossy the Racoon. He lives in a good neighborhood, but Flossy’s mom realizes he would probably be better off in the woods. However, Flossy does not let his mom’s realization deter him. He introduces children to his friends, the local cats. Flossy also shows readers the beautiful, natural landscape in which he can play. Children visit the river and see how the raccoon interacts with others as he meets a group of puppies who want to play. The dogs even help Flossy return home safely by giving him safety tips. Ultimately, Flossy realizes an important lesson after his adventures: there is no place as safe, fun, and warm as home. ... (read more)

In this poetic reimagining of Albert Bierstadt’s life, readers discover America’s true and untamed "Wild West." They also enter into the artistic realm of a German-American painter whose work transformed how people across America and even the globe viewed the American wilderness. The hardships of emigrating westward into unknown, unexplored expanses unfold. The poems capture an artist’s personal and professional difficulties, including harsh criticism from reviewers and patrons, the fiery destruction of Bierstadt’s mansion, and Bierstadt’s wife’s struggle with chronic illness. These poems solidify, too, Bierstadt’s legacy as an artist who reimagined the West in a way so few could during his time. Poems like “Chief Rocky Bear Views The Last of the Buffalo in Paris, 1889” portray “the stillness of the great picture” and the respectful way in which Bierstadt painted and preserved the dignity and cultures of the Sioux and Shoshone peoples. ... (read more)

Exciting Introduction

In this fun children’s book, young readers meet Funky Donkey on a bright sunny day. Funky Donkey likes to ski fast. He zooms and falls and crashes, taking young readers with him. Eventually, Funky Donkey meets Robo the Robot, who suggests that Funky Donkey take some ski lessons. Despite his resistance, Funky Donkey eventually meets his ski instructor, Pineapple Herb. Pineapple Herb reinforces the necessity for safety and ski lessons to Funky Donkey, and young readers receive many important safety lessons that will teach them to be mindful of their own skiing practices. For example, they learn why they should always wear a helmet, and they learn important techniques that will help them maintain balance on the slopes. They also learn the important turns, like the J-Turn, that will improve their technique. ... (read more)

Real World Christmas

Part of a series of children’s books, this particular story follows Princess Taryn and Prince Kevin from the kingdom of Athanasia. They visit Jabalia in the tropics to attend the wedding of their friend Princess Jameela to Zuberi, the son of a prime minister. While commemorating the sweet occasion, they enjoy the special ways the inhabitants of Jabalia celebrate their Christmas festivities as compared to those in Athanasia. Meanwhile, they also strengthen their ties with their friends from the far more secretive country of New Atlantis. Princess Taryn’s younger brother, James, even forms a bond with Tabitha, who comes from New Atlantis and uses their advanced technology to fight against pirates. When James and Tabitha spend time together at a waterfall, things take a tragic turn when Tabitha falls and hurts herself. It takes James and their friends to rescue her. Meanwhile, Princess Taryn has been experiencing dizzy spells, which are alarming but lead to a sweet reveal. ... (read more)

Peace Seeking

Author Naito has composed a vibrant treatise centered on issues of race and skin color and their potential effects on social behaviors, feelings, and legal issues. The setting for his artfully constructed work is Hawaii, where Naito was raised, noting that it is a state with a low number of hate crimes, providing a melting pot where people of all heritages live “in peace and harmony.” The spokesperson for his salient points is the title’s Princess Liliokalani, who initiates the book’s themes by asking, “What does racism mean to you?” Is it, she questions, based on skin color (a thin layer that some people try to darken for greater beauty), dress styles, languages, foods, or other superficial elements? ... (read more)

One morning, a mother woke up feeling positive and planned to go out with her daughter. Suddenly, she was hit with a severe migraine and could no longer go out with her child. The mother lay in bed in her bedroom, feeling unwell. Her daughter was sad to see her mother suffer, so she tried to help her by bringing her an ice pack and a cold drink. The father came home and realized that his wife was not feeling well. His daughter felt responsible for her mother's migraine, but her dad reassured her that it was not her fault. Later, the daughter saw that the lights in her parents' bedroom were on and guessed that her mother was feeling better. Her mother came out of the bedroom looking happier than ever. ... (read more)

Bold Lessons

Jesse Pérez is a middle-aged widower who lives in California with his ten-year-old son Matthew. Matthew has some mild autism and is highly intelligent. Jesse's husband, David, passed away from cancer six months prior to the story's beginning. One night, Jesse's fifteen-year-old niece, Gloria, knocks on his door unexpectedly. She has run away from her home in Lubbock, Texas, because she is pregnant and seeking an abortion in California. Jesse allows her to stay with him and have the procedure but insists, as she manifests terror, that she inform her parents where she is. ... (read more)

Inside Story

Everyone knows that skiing can be fun. After all, it is a whole sports industry. But as the book illustrates, there is more for the asking at most ski areas. The theme here is to expand and explore adventure horizons. From activities as crazy and cold as ice yachting to more mellow and introspective alternatives like bird watching or yoga, Naito helps readers see the possibilities for a life well lived. ... (read more)

Thought-Provoking

Author Naito propounds a significant view of racism, hate crimes, and discrimination at all levels as they manifest in America. He sets Hawaii as a positive exemplar for its statistically based multiculturism and proposes an effort, led by the University of Hawaii, to identify causes of, and solutions for, hate crime and racism wherever found. He devotes chapters to various immigrant groups in the US, beginning with the Chinese. Their arrival in the 1800s was based on economic factors. Those who came were hardworking men who were treated as slaves, engendering bias against them that still lingers. The Japanese migrated seeking better circumstances, with families settling, often as farmers, until World War II brought about their US internment in subhuman quarters. Still, these cultures, including Koreans who arrived later, maintain strong, respect-based standards for familial and social behaviors. ... (read more)

Generational Trauma

After marrying in Israel, the author’s parents moved to Los Angeles shortly before he was born. His father was a survivor of the concentration camp known as Dachau, and his mother survived by being hidden in a barn where she watched her own mother die and was in constant fear of being turned into the Nazis by the abusive family who owned the property. When his parents split, his aunt and uncle took him in. They, too, survived the war and kept their scars hidden. However, they worked extremely hard to provide for Raff and loved him very much. Later, Raff’s mother took him back, luring him away with the promise of the sister he didn’t know he had. ... (read more)

Abundant Passion

Writing that he is “passionate about helping people find their life path by helping them understand and use their own soul guidance,” Acheson’s self-help guide seeks to align the reader with both God’s will and one’s own instinct to overcome life traumas and reach the greatest natural potential possible. Through sharing selections of his own intimate poetry, the author explains it is his hope that sharing his personal pain in life will help readers realize that change and spiritual progress are always possible. Examination of one’s many habit-based perceptions and the power of choice and intention serve as fodder for the ultimate goal of “metanoia,” defined as “the journey of changing one’s mind, heart, self, or way of life.” Finding one’s center and purpose is a process that takes time, Acheson contends. But with the right tools and perspective, it can absolutely happen. ... (read more)

Best Course

The author’s unique offering is a comprehensive guide to preparing anyone from age three to eighteen to ski. In addition to the standard areas of preparation such as outfits, appropriate ski poles (adjustable ones are more expensive but may be more beneficial to a very young skier), instruction on positions regarding the skier's body and posture, and finding the right coach for the young person, Naito briefly describes the perspective of each age group, the importance of proper nutrition and hydration, and additional aspects of preparation that usually are not covered in traditional lessons. One example is the importance of the ski student going to the bathroom prior to the lesson. ... (read more)

Growth Potential

"Cumulative Reinforcement of Concepts and Skills [CRCS]" is an instructional strategy that was introduced in the late 1990s and intended for high school students. Its efficacy was noted, and teachers of fourth and fifth grades were eager to implement it in their classes, as was a teacher of the seventh and eighth grades in Florida. The results were dramatic. ... (read more)

Godly Adoption

Mr. and Mrs. Jones have two children and feel they have a happy family. However, the couple has been thinking of adopting a third child. After going through the process and the paperwork, the Jones family is introduced to Quiana. They gather her things and take her home, introducing her to her new surroundings. Quiana likes Mr. and Mrs. Jones as well as their two children. The family is nice and takes good care of her. She has her own room, and she enjoys going to school and church. However, as she has been bouncing around foster homes for the past three years, she has decided not to get disappointed again. She is going to tell the Jones family that she doesn’t want to stay with them any longer. ... (read more)

Reconciling

Rosalee Linoff is adjusting to a new life at sixty-three years old. Her husband, Arnold, has recently passed away, and Rosalee’s grief has left her stagnant. As a new year has dawned, Rosalee knows she must get back into normalcy and stay active. She longs to get back into her sculpting. Her attempts at self-rejuvenation are tested when she meets her new neighbor, Fran Barish. Despite Fran’s ingratiating manner, Rosalee keeps her at arm’s length. Fran infiltrates Rosalee’s social circle and befriends Rosalee’s granddaughter Jill. The barely concealed animosity between Rosalee and Fran is revealed to revolve around Rosalee’s late husband, Arnold, and a previous relationship with Fran. In spite of the turmoil with Fran, Rosalee is determined to put her best foot forward in sculpting and in life. ... (read more)

In this honest, heartfelt memoir, Nemeth begins as she and her brother—ages one and two—arrive in Phoenix with their mother after leaving their father. Searching for a new life, they have few possessions. Nemeth’s mother waitresses at a diner and eventually marries a local car salesman. Although naturally filled with a curious imagination and a thirst for learning, Nemeth is discouraged from reading and intellectual growth. Her unschooled parents, unable to nurture her, view the author’s role as one of simply marrying and bearing children. Nemeth instead finds meaning in competing academically. As her parents disavow her, she works her way through college, earns a doctorate in anatomy, travels the world engaged in academic fieldwork, and later teaches at Washington University School of Medicine. She eventually discovers her true life’s calling as a physician. Successful in practicing medicine (and finding her true love, Jim), she nonetheless encounters instances throughout her career of misogyny and sexism. ... (read more)

Appropriation

Just as Ian sees many changes in his life between his initial sea voyage from Scotland to Canada in the 1720s and his settling on a farm in the 1730s, his adopted country also undergoes many changes during his time there. The book charts Ian’s travels with his mentor and friend, Father Henri, through Native settlements and budding towns. Between trips, he works as a barrel maker and with voyageurs in a fur trading outfit. Then, he marries Sarah and devotes his life to the family farm. As the farm and Ian’s family grow, tension between the French and British over the new territory mounts. ... (read more)

Stuempfle spins a fantasy tale about the collapse and restructure of a civilization as the Haafian await an attack by the enemy Kyykki. The story develops through the conversations between the many characters and the situations that arise. The dialogue evinces the relationships of the characters on a micro level, as well as develops the tension of beings anticipating the chaos of a collapsing civilization. The story is filled with the drama of battle, although not as much as a good versus evil tale but of ambiguity versus more ambiguity. An intriguing question emerges from the narrative: how do beings develop a society and, subsequently, cope with the preparations for its defense or restructure? ... (read more)

Author Campbell recounts the many remarkable incidents and notable characters that he and his wife, Wanda, have encountered in their dedicated work in street ministry. Located in Columbus, Ohio, their charitable mission, the Dream Center, has assisted many persons in desperate physical and spiritual need. ... (read more)

Bargas’ book is divided into two parts. The first is “The Journey,” while the second is “The Calling.” The book tells the story of a young man who grows up in the Christian faith. He enlists and is sent to Vietnam to fight. The author ultimately engages in many battles in which he sees not only the members of the Viet Cong tortured and killed but also civilians and close friends, one of whom he feels strongly was an angel sent by God to protect him from harm. During the multiple horrors of battle, Bargas, plagued by nightmares, finds relief in killing, as well as in abusing drugs and alcohol. His destruction continues until he is declared mentally unfit and sent home. ... (read more)

The author has had many wonderful dogs in her life, including Boy Scout. Now that these dogs have passed away, she is missing them. She wonders if these animals will be waiting for her when she dies. She imagines them greeting her at Heaven’s gate, running to greet her and licking her face. She believes that if they remember her and greet her when she passes, she’ll see rainbows everywhere. She loved the days when these dogs would follow her like her own shadow and bring her joy when she was down. Although she misses the dogs now, she is looking forward to a time when her life is over and she can reunite with her beloved dogs. once again enjoying their company and unwavering friendship. ... (read more)

In this comic book-style collection, a young boy named Arni goes on a wide variety of extraordinary adventures. Whether he’s catching mischievous flies, hatching dinosaurs to become his pets, or dressing up as a bear to work at the zoo, there is no end of excitement around each bend in his life. Arni's world is truly a wild and wacky place. His mother is oftentimes busy with work elsewhere, but the people and things her son encounters might just surprise her on a regular basis as well. Then again, at one point she even helps Arni to try and catch a ghost, leading to the stunning realization that such activities are an average day in the lives of these characters. Almost anything has the chance of happening next. ... (read more)

Eight-year-old James has a big brother named John and a little sister named Shayla. Their mom takes great care of them, and their dad works fixing planes at the airport. Born with one leg shorter than the other, James is always told by doctors that he will never be able to run like his friends. This saddens James, who dreams of running. Other kids tease him for the way he walks. When the family moves, James finds his classmates to be kind, and they encourage him. Every weekend, he runs with his best friend, Daniel, and over time gains confidence. Though it’s difficult, James never gives up and with practice gets better and better. His gym teacher notices and suggests he join the school track team. On the day of the big race, James finishes second, and the entire family celebrates. ... (read more)

Self-Examination

Author Koncerak presents a treatise to assist his readers in focusing on and thereby improving their lives, opening the mind and spirit to the God-given concept of free will and its role in complex human experience. The book comprises three parts: “How You Were Born,” “What You Have,” and “What You Want,” each addressing four of Koncerak’s twelve contentions regarding human development. Koncerak avows he specifically addresses men since he is a man and believes that other males will readily identify with his ideas and appreciate his sometimes rowdy sense of humor. However, women, he states, can also grasp the book’s sturdy principles. ... (read more)

Author Campbell takes young readers with her on a walk in the woods while teaching observation and curiosity, sometimes humorously: "The great stag stands tall on the path just ahead. We count twelve points on his antlers. How does he go to bed?" It is refreshing to see everything growing in the woods as a garden. After all, gardens aren't just where carrots grow. Teaching young readers that moss and mushrooms are alive helps them see the magic on the forest floor. ... (read more)

If you’ve ever imagined what would happen if you committed a significant crime and were sentenced to jail despite having previously lived an ordinary, law-abiding life, this is the memoir to read. Natalie Peters, a healthcare professional working in Queensland, Australia, turns her quiet, churchgoing life upside down with an unspecified, serious crime she committed under the influence of a mental health issue. Convicted and sentenced to jail time, the next four months of her life were spent grappling with the many stated and unstated social rules of incarceration that she had to swiftly learn in order to cope with the personality quirks of her fellow inmates and prison guards and staff. ... (read more)

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Eleanor Catton Wants Plot to Matter Again

By B. D. McClay

Toward the end of “Birnam Wood” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), the latest novel from the New Zealand writer Eleanor Catton, Rosie Demarney, an otherwise minor character, gets a moment in the spotlight. She has been presented with a series of facts that seem to add up to a humiliating conclusion: the guy she likes has blown her off to pursue an old flame. Her fears are only confirmed by the embarrassed gaze of her crush’s sister. At home, clinging to her self-respect by a thread, Rosie firmly tells herself that she “was not going to play the role that he had cast her in; she was not going to spend the evening in her sweatpants, getting drunk and stalking him pathetically online.” A beat, a line break, and then the inevitable: “But hell. Nobody was watching.”

By now, if readers of “Birnam Wood” have learned one thing, it’s that someone is always watching. Whether people are being spied on by the modern technologies of surveillance (Google, G.P.S., cell phones, drones, social media) or by the more ancient techniques of intimacy (marriage, friendship, family, gossip), they are never afforded the luxury of a purely private action, or of avoiding the roles that others have written for them.

“Birnam Wood” opens with a seemingly impersonal catastrophe: a landslide in New Zealand kills five people. From this disaster a complex and often shocking sequence of events unfolds. The Darvishes, the owners of a large farm near the accident, withdraw it from sale; this withdrawal comes to the attention of Mira Bunting, “aged twenty-nine, a horticulturalist by training, and the founder of an activist collective known among its members as Birnam Wood.” Mira had previously inquired about the listing under a false identity, and she decides to visit: Birnam Wood illegally plants gardens on unused land, and the farm seems an ideal target for expansion. While trespassing on the grounds, she meets a curt American stranger who knows too much about her, including her name. He is Robert Lemoine, the billionaire co-founder of Autonomo, a drone manufacturer.

He is also, as we quickly learn, though Mira does not, responsible for the landslide. It doesn’t trouble him much. “Five dead, in the scheme of things, was basically no dead at all,” he thinks. Lemoine is in New Zealand pretending to build a covert apocalypse bunker; to this end, he is purchasing the Darvish farm under conditions of total secrecy, so secret that the estate must seem not to be for sale at all. But his actual aims are much darker: Korowai, the national park that sits beside the farm, possesses rare-earth minerals, which if extracted will make Lemoine “the richest person who had ever lived.” In Mira, Lemoine sees a kindred spirit, but also a dupe. He can use Birnam Wood as another smoke screen, a way to launder his presence through a local, eco-friendly organization. He offers Mira access to the farm and a hundred thousand dollars, suspecting, correctly, that she’ll find both the financial security and his shadowy mystique irresistible.

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Much like the moment in pool when the cue ball breaks up the carefully assembled triangle, this encounter between Mira and Lemoine ends up affecting every other character in the book, even those who have no reason to know one another. The choices they make, to use and to be used, reverberate in ways you might expect only if the image of the five crushed landslide victims lingers as you read. All of the book’s major players get a chance to turn the tide of events in their favor. Shelley Noakes, Mira’s best friend and roommate, is stealthily seeking a way out of the collective, tired of playing the steady foil to her more volatile friend. The Darvishes—Sir Owen and his wife, Lady Darvish—view Lemoine’s incredible wealth with a mixture of disgust, awe, and desire, even as they conduct business with him. And, finally, there’s Tony Gallo, Rosie’s love interest, Mira’s ex- something , and a former member of Birnam Wood, who, in a paroxysm of barely sublimated sexual jealousy, has decided to write an exposé of Lemoine, and in so doing stumbles upon Lemoine’s mining operation.

All of these people think that, with a little luck, they can manipulate another party to their advantage—even when they know that the others think the same of them, even when they are plotting betrayals on the fly, even when some of their plans are immediate and abject failures. (When Shelley first encounters Tony, she thinks that he presents an easy way to end her friendship with Mira: she will simply seduce him. She does not succeed.) Like Rosie, they have no intention of merely playing a role that somebody else wrote for them. And, like Rosie, they end up doing it anyway.

We do not live in the golden age of plot, at least where literary fiction is concerned. Outside of what we might call high-genre books—the thrillers of Ruth Rendell, say, or the crime novels of Tana French—it’s rare for a literary novel to take its plot seriously. Instead, contemporary literary fiction largely concerns itself with other things: moods, problems, situations. Few people would dream of writing a novel without characters, but a novel without a plot is practically normal. When you speak of what a novel is about, you speak thematically—it’s about surveillance, or displacement, or heterosexuality, or something along these lines.

In a recent interview, Catton commented, somewhat blandly, that “the moral development of people in plotted novels where people make choices is fascinating and important. I’d like to see more books like that.” Her interest in plot as something that arises from human choice, and not just from the context in which those choices take place, means that her own plots take a sideways approach. Just as we are constantly summing up books as types, the characters in “Birnam Wood” are constantly summing up one another, often incorrectly. When Shelley tries to seduce Tony—who, after a sojourn in Mexico, had completely forgotten that she existed—he is overwhelmed by their similarities, “astonished that he could ever have forgotten someone so thoroughly simpatico as Shelley Noakes.” Catton adds, in a rare direct address to the audience:

It never crossed his mind that since she had not forgotten him , the personality that she revealed to him might very easily have been customised, the opinions tailored, the résumé adapted, to suit what she remembered of his interests and his taste; never dreaming that she might be flirting with him, he reflected only that there was something appealingly familiar in her candid warmth and air of frank and ready capability.

One of Catton’s favorite moves is to conclude a scene from one character’s perspective only to start the next scene from the perspective of an adjacent character—someone whom the first character got slightly wrong. Shelley’s frantic musing about how to confess to Mira her desire to leave Birnam Wood is undercut by our realization that Mira has divined this desire weeks earlier. Mira’s perception of their relationship is undercut when, worried that Shelley has already left, she gets out her phone to check a “location tracker app that they had both installed . . . and never used.” But Shelley, we happen to know, uses the app to keep tabs on Mira all the time. They share an understanding of their friendship—that Mira is the top dog and Shelley is the sidekick, and that Shelley is “smothered” by this dynamic—that may not be true at all, or not true in the way they think.

Unlike Donna Tartt, who uses plot as straightforwardly as Dickens, or Sally Rooney, who has remade the marriage plot for a post-marriage era, Catton lets her plots and their attendant stakes emerge from a general situation. Like her characters, we begin without a sense of what matters, and are often pointed in the wrong direction. Initially, “Birnam Wood” seems to have no aspirations beyond an exploration of young, white, left-wing radicalism and its accompanying guilt—the kind of book that is “about” the anxiety of being a good person under capitalism and/or climate change. Mira fantasizes about brutal deaths in order to punish herself for feeling insufficiently bad about them. (“She compelled herself to imagine being crushed and suffocated, holding the thought in her mind’s eye for several seconds.”) Tony wants to argue about identity politics. When Mira allies herself with Lemoine, agreeing, over Tony’s protests, to let him finance Birnam Wood, we think we know how this will go: some hand-wringing, followed by some form of sexual congress, followed by a shrug over the problems of selling out.

We are wrong. “Birnam Wood” ’s biggest twist is not so much a particular event as the realization that this is a book in which everything that people choose to do matters, albeit not in ways they may have anticipated. Catton has a profound command of how perceptions lead to choice, and of how choice, for most of us, is an act of self-definition. Take Mira, whose determination not to be typecast lends her a stubbornness that’s easily mistaken for strength of character. Like some of her friends, Mira assumes that Lemoine’s interest in her is sexual: indeed, she spends time first imagining a scenario in which she’s propositioned and, ice-cold, turns him down, then an alternative, deflationary scenario in which she sleeps with him to prove that she’s not a prude. Her need to be unpredictable makes her easy to manipulate—it wouldn’t be unfair to say that she takes Lemoine’s money to show that she’s more than an idealist. But this choice is not, ultimately, about her. It invites violence, both symbolically—Birnam Wood now runs on “blood money,” as Tony puts it—and, as the book goes on, quite literally. The idea that her choices could affect something other than her internal narrative doesn’t occur to Mira, because it doesn’t often occur to anybody.

Meanwhile, “Birnam Wood” ’s true turns are all carefully set up, as long as you’re focussing on the right details. But none of the characters pay attention to the right things; they all think their snap impressions tell them what they need to know. Even Lemoine’s canny manipulation of others relies on the kind of lie that looks like the truth: a bunker is what people will expect him to be hiding, so that’s what he must be hiding. Discovering that they live in a world of consequence, with stakes bigger than self-image or self-respect, is as much of a shock to the characters as it is to us. Congratulations, Catton seems to say, on being just smart enough to play yourself.

Catton’s own choices are not without their critics. In a review of her second novel, the Booker Prize-winning “The Luminaries,” a critic for the Guardian wrote that the book was “a massive shaggy dog story; a great empty bag; an enormous, wicked, gleeful cheat.” But “The Luminaries” does tell a real story—a story of fated lovers—that it reveals only by inches. This romance, which appears to transcend the limits of space, is so heartfelt as to be, when put in plain view, almost embarrassing. For most of the book, it’s obscured, and we spend the first five or six hundred pages meeting the many characters whose various, complex, and sometimes tragic lives are, in the end, merely secondary. We discover what all of this is about at the same time they do.

Although “The Luminaries” stretches this form of emergent storytelling to the breaking point—it might not be a cheat, but several hundred pages is a long time to spend on misdirection—it’s clear that Catton is trying both to revive plot as a literary mode and to consider what a story line looks like in our real, unplotted life, in which things reveal themselves to have a shape only in retrospect. This project appears in a more subdued form in “The Rehearsal,” Catton’s début novel, which begins with a scandal: a student and a teacher have been discovered in a sexual affair. Everything in “The Rehearsal” takes place in a realm of high artifice, characterized by people who are so exact in their speech that you’re terrified to contemplate what they might not be saying. “A film of soured breast milk clutches at your daughter like a shroud,” a saxophone teacher informs the mother of a student. “Do you hear me, with your mouth like a thin scarlet thread and your deflated bosom and your stale mustard blouse?”

No saxophone teacher, or human being, for that matter, has ever spoken anything even approaching these words, but the arch, direct tone re-creates the unsettling world of adolescence, and the murky nature of adult expectation, more precisely than realism could. We expect the “story” of “The Rehearsal” to be about the fallout from the student-teacher affair. But this is really the backdrop for the novel’s true story, which is how the saxophone teacher tries—and fails—to use her students to reënact the story of her own frustrated love for another woman, with a different, happier ending. She fails because she cannot control the students’ choices any more than she could those of her onetime friend.

This willingness to let characters be mistaken—really, lastingly mistaken—is another quality that emerges from Catton’s privileging of human choice. When Tony uncovers proof of Lemoine’s rare-earth mining, he draws reasonable but slightly incorrect conclusions, assuming that Lemoine must be conspiring with Sir Darvish instead of deceiving him. The only people who would be in a position to correct him don’t—and so he carries on with this not false, but not true, version of events to the end. When Rosie Demarney, alone in her apartment, succumbs to an evening of Internet-stalking Tony, she stumbles across evidence that he could be in danger. In a Dickens novel, a character like Rosie might turn out to be pivotal; she’d connect the dots and save the day. Instead, she leaves the story for good. Would you, after all, go on a wild chase for someone you’d just been drunkenly Googling in your sweatpants? Someone you didn’t really know? Would it even matter if you tried?

One of the tragedies that plot brings to light is the degree to which our inner lives and intentions can simply come to nothing—unrealized despite our best efforts, misunderstood and fruitless, as the story we played our part in generating goes on without us. It is only by elevating human choice that we can see how often our choices don’t matter, after all. Or maybe it would be better to say that our choices matter only unpredictably. There’s no way of knowing what will really count until later, and by then it’s too late. Better choose.

In the course of “Birnam Wood,” Lemoine hacks phones, infiltrates e-mail accounts, operates drones with spy cameras, and employs a team of covert operatives. In his relentless surveillance, he is half critic, half author, and, in his own estimation, a kind of god. Like Catton, he tricks people into seeing what they expect to see.

But surveillance isn’t reading, much less writing; it’s data captured without interpretation. Instead of characters, we get types; instead of principles, revealed preferences. “A marketing algorithm doesn’t see you as a human being,” Tony says at one point, having lost his temper with another member of Birnam Wood:

It sees you purely as a matrix of categories: a person who’s female, and heterosexual . . . and white, and university-educated, and employed, who has these kinds of friends and shares these kinds of articles and posts these kinds of pictures and makes these kinds of searches . . . . Identity politics, intersectionality, whatever you call it—it’s the exact same thing.

It must be true that people often are what, on the surface, they seem to be; if it weren’t, algorithms wouldn’t have much use at all. There’s a certain pleasure in being a known type. At one point, Lemoine notes how “being a cliché can be very useful,” as it makes other people “think they’ve seen all there is to see.” Lady Darvish, musing on her marriage, thinks that her husband “took a certain pride in being so predictable . . . for the simple reason that he loved to see her demonstrate how well she understood him.”

Here, though, the implication is that we can read people without reducing them to a type. Owen Darvish loves to watch his wife “take that caricature and refine it, improving the likeness, adding depth and subtlety, shading it in.” Although not an optimistic book, “Birnam Wood” suggests that the greatest spook technology of all remains human love, with all its presumptive qualities, and that no external approximation will ever beat it at its game. There are things you just won’t know about other people, even if you intercept every text and every e-mail, unless you have loved them for a long time. There are gambles you are willing to take, acts of heroism and trust you are willing to commit to, because you know that you know them.

As for whether those acts matter, “Birnam Wood,” like all good books, doesn’t supply an answer. Reading it, I was drawn to the question of who represents Macbeth, the king who would be defeated only when “Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill / Shall come against him.” Macbeth is a character severed from choice. Prophecy, like a mystical surveillance system, keeps him blameless and safe: he is simply the man who is going to be king, and he does what he must do in order to preserve himself. In studying how much this or that person resembled him, I thought about ambition, deceit, paranoia, and unscrupulous ascension to power. I wondered who would be one of the witches, or, for that matter, Macduff. I wondered a lot of things—and yet it didn’t occur to me until the book’s final pages that the most significant attribute Macbeth possesses is something much more straightforward, at least where plot is concerned. Because Macbeth doesn’t understand what he’s told, because he lets prophecy make his choices for him, because he is at heart a cowardly man, when he’s faced with a certain human ingenuity, he loses. ♦

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Annie Jacobsen: 'What if we had a nuclear war?’

The author and Pulitzer prize finalist, who has written the latest pick for the New Scientist Book Club, Nuclear War: A scenario, on the "shocking truths" about a nuclear attack

By Annie Jacobsen

12 April 2024

The Titan nuclear missile in the silo in Arizona, US

Michael Dunning/Getty Images

Not long after the last world war, the historian William L. Shirer had this to say about the next world war. It “will be launched by suicidal little madmen pressing an electronic button. Such a war will not last long and none will ever follow it. There will be no conquers and no conquests, but only the charred bones of the dead on an uninhabited planet.”

As an investigative journalist, I write about war, weapons, national security and government secrets. I’ve previously written six books about US military and intelligence programmes – at the CIA, The Pentagon, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency– all designed to prevent, or deter, nuclear world war III . In the course of my work, countless people in the upper echelons of US government have told me, proudly, that they’ve dedicated their lives to making sure the US never has a nuclear war. But what if it did?

“Every capability in the [Department of Defense] is underpinned by the fact that strategic deterrence will hold,” US Strategic Command (STRATCOM), which is responsible for nuclear deterrence, insists publicly. Until the autumn of 2022, this promise was pinned on STRATCOM’s public Twitter feed. But to a private audience at Sandia National Laboratories later that same year, STRATCOM’s Thomas Bussiere admitted the existential danger inherent to deterrence. “Everything unravels itself if those things are not true.”

If deterrence fails – what exactly would that unravelling look like? To write Nuclear War: A scenario , I put this question to scores of former nuclear command and control authorities. To the military and civilian experts who’ve built the weapon systems, been privy to the response plans and been responsible for advising the US president on nuclear counterstrike decisions should they have to be made. What I learned terrified me. Here are just a few of the shocking truths about nuclear war.

The US maintains a nuclear launch policy called Launch on Warning. This means that if a military satellite indicates the nation is under nuclear attack and a second early-warning radar confirms that information, the president launches nuclear missiles in response. Former secretary of defense William Perry told me: “Once we are warned of a nuclear attack, we prepare to launch. This is policy. We do not wait.”

The US president has sole authority to launch nuclear weapons. He asks permission of no one. Not the secretary of defense, not the chairman of the joint chief of staff, not the US Congress. “The authority is inherent in his role as commander in chief,” the Congressional Research Service confirms. The president “does not need the concurrence of either his [or her] military advisors or the US Congress to order the launch of nuclear weapons”.

When the president learns he must respond to a nuclear attack, he has just 6 minutes to do so. Six minutes is an irrational amount of time to “decide whether to release Armageddon”, President Ronald Reagan lamented in his memoirs. “Six minutes to decide how to respond to a blip on a radar scope… How could anyone apply reason at a time like that?” And yet, the president must respond. This is because it takes roughly just 30 minutes for an intercontinental ballistic missile to get from a launch pad in Russia, North Korea or China to any city in the US, and vice versa. Nuclear-armed submarines can cut that launch-to-target time to 10 minutes, or less.

Today, there are nine nuclear powers, with a combined total of more than 12,500 nuclear weapons ready to be used. The US and Russia each have some 1700 nuclear weapons deployed – weapons that can be launched in seconds or minutes after their respective president gives the command. This is what Shirer meant when he said: “Such a war will not last long and none will ever follow it.”

Nuclear war is the only scenario other than an asteroid strike that could end civilisation in a matter of hours. The soot from burning cities and forests will blot out the sun and cause nuclear winter. Agriculture will fail. Some 5 billion people will die. In the words of former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, “the survivors will envy the dead”.

I wrote Nuclear War: A scenario to demonstrate – in appalling, minute-by-minute detail – just how horrifying a nuclear war would be. “Humanity is one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation,” UN secretary-general António Guterres warned the world in 2022. “This is madness. We must reverse course.”

Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen, published by Torva (£20.00), is available now. It is the latest pick for the New Scientist Book Club: sign up here to read along with our members

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Invincible season 2 gave new meaning to meaningless comic book death

Creator Robert Kirkman: ‘We’re just trying to wring emotion out of inherently silly superhero tropes’

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Invincible ’s reputation for hyper-violence is well earned. The Prime Video show’s season 1 massacre of the Guardians at the hands of Nolan/Omni-Man (J.K. Simmons) is harrowing, and it sets the tone for the show’s commitment to realistic superpowered gore and destruction. And few scenes in television history are as gnarly or horrifying as the destruction of a train and everyone on board in the first season’s finale .

With all that carnage, you would think the repeated exposure to seeing Dupli-Kate die on the show would numb the effect when what seemed like her actual death came. But no! It’s brutal in the way only Invincible can be, all blood and guts and sinew. It could be easy to skate past the impact of all that death and destruction and just focus on the spectacle. And yet, season 2 of Invincible took a step back and focused on the varied ways death profoundly changes us, using death not just as a narrative event to push the season’s plot forward but as a thematic throughline the characters have to grapple with.

Big, impactful deaths can happen at a moment’s notice on the show, but that doesn’t mean Invincible moves on just as quickly. Dupli-Kate (Malese Jow) has repeatedly experienced death throughout the show via her cloning powers. It’s the basis of her relationship with the Immortal (Ross Marquand), who himself has died many times (it didn’t take). Despite their massive difference in age, it’s one of the most sincere relationships in the show, as they can uniquely relate to each other’s many experiences with life and death. It might be the least problematic age-gap relationship in fiction.

That’s why it hits so hard when Dupli-Kate appears to die for good in the midseason premiere, “This Must Come as a Shock.” This death is given room to breathe, with a funeral the next episode as the team mourns. The Immortal is hit particularly hard by her death — even harder than previous loved ones he’s lost — because of their strong connection over how many times they’ve escaped that fate and the guilt that can bring.

The superheroes from Invincible wear black at Dupli-Kate’s funeral, with the Immortal touching the casket.

“What would this actually be like to experience, when you actually take seriously these things that are designed to not be taken seriously?” series creator Robert Kirkman says of the decision to slow down on Dupli-Kate’s death and its impact on the Immortal. “That’s really when we’re having our most fun on Invincible . And this is something that’s dealt with in Highlander and all kinds of different things. It’s not like we’re reinventing the wheel or anything. But when you sit down and think about just how depressing and terrible it would be to be immortal, the luster of Oh, I could live forever kind of goes away.”

This is one of the best parts of Invincible : taking some of the more ridiculous tropes and narrative beats of the superhero genre at face value, and grounding them to analyze how it would actually affect a person. This is especially true in the series’ depiction of death, both in the no-holds-barred brutal ways death gets shown in the series, and in the aftermath, as everyone struggles to pick up the pieces. We may not see each of Omni-Man’s many victims, but the weight of that destruction is felt across the entirety of the season.

Most visibly, Mark (Steven Yeun) and Debbie (Sandra Oh) are still grappling with it. Debbie goes to a support group for the spouses of superheroes, only to be tragically rejected after a member discovers who her spouse is. Meanwhile, Mark is haunted by his fight with his father, the death and destruction it caused, and his fear that he’s more like his father than he wishes to be. He’s also fully aware that he’s not quite as invincible as his name suggests, especially after he loses another brutal fight to a Viltrumite in season 2 when the warrior Anissa shows up and calmly beats the snot out of him.

All of this comes to a head in the finale, “I Thought You Were Stronger,” where Mark squares off against Angstrom Levy (Sterling K. Brown). Levy, a dimension-hopping scientist who has lost his grip on reality, has captured Debbie and Mark’s half-brother, Oliver, holding them hostage in exchange for Mark’s life. Levy is also haunted by death, having seen loved ones murdered by Mark in almost every other reality in the multiverse. Driven to the edge, Mark carries Levy through a portal to a desolate alternate dimension and whales on him. When he finally looks up from the carnage of his attack, Mark realizes he has gone too far and killed for the first time. It’s then he whimpers the heartbreaking line used as the episode title: “I thought you were stronger.”

In another timeline, Mark Grayson talks with Angstrom Levy in Invincible season 2

It’s a mirror image of the first season’s finale, where Nolan nearly beats Mark to death. That event sent even Nolan spiraling (as we see throughout the second season), and Mark is hit even harder by what he’s done. The irreversible damage he’s caused reflects all of his deepest fears about becoming his father, and how inevitable his turn to evil seems in all other universes. And then there’s the direct result of his actions: being stuck on a seemingly abandoned planet with no apparent way out. As Kirkman told Polygon, it’s “the embodiment of ‘If you lose control, you lose yourself.’”

“It was a scene I was really worried about, to be completely honest,” Kirkman says. Stuck on the planet, Mark essentially speedruns the stages of grief. He denies what happened, gets angry at himself, and makes excuses before finally accepting the truth. The monologue was initially written for the comic book (and Kirkman believes spiraling monologues tend to work better in that medium). But it’s rendered masterfully by Steven Yeun, who portrays Mark as pleading and almost childlike, seamlessly alternating between panic, disappointment, and rage as he comes to grips with what he’s done. “I think that in the hands of a lesser actor, that scene does not work and people go, Robert Kirkman is a bad writer, this was a bad idea . We just kind of went for it. And Steven totally nailed it. It could have gone horribly wrong if not for the immense talents of Steven Yeun.”

Yeun’s talents reveal the delicate balance always at play with Invincible and its relationship to loss. Death seems always around the corner for Mark, even though he is (literally) Invincible, and therefore has a different relationship with mortality than his friends or even most of his fellow superheroes. He carries the burden of knowledge: knowledge that he will likely outlive all of his loved ones, except for the father that nearly took his life, as well as knowledge that his own invincibility isn’t as assured as he might like it to be.

And now he has the knowledge of how easy it is for him to take a life. The threat of death hangs over him like a pall — and Yeun’s ability to access the more solemn parts of Mark’s previously chipper, youthful demeanor goes a long way toward communicating his changing relationship with death. How can you focus on college, or your relationship with your girlfriend, or even helping your mom take care of your new alien half-brother when you see death everywhere you look? All of those, and more, get dropped by Mark as he gets an even firmer understanding of his responsibilities on Earth (and the fear of the consequences of failure), especially if he’s going to stop a Viltrumite invasion.

Omni-Man holds what looks like an opposing fist in his hand in Invincible season 2

Even the nearly indestructible Omni-Man is thinking about death. Hiding out on the alien planet Thraxa with his new family, the first season’s antagonist now finds himself grappling with new, confusing feelings of guilt and responsibility. Much to his surprise, he actually cares about what happens to the Thraxans when the Viltrumites show up, and even seems to have regrets about how he handled things on Earth; the very final line of the season comes from Omni-Man, as Simmons delivers “I think… I miss my wife” with a healthy heap of shock at himself. It’s a far cry from comparing Debbie to a pet in the first season, and his arc is neatly juxtaposed with the different relationship Thraxans have to death because of their much shorter lifespans.

“You’ve got all this death happening on Earth, and you go to this alien planet where they’re like, Ultimately, we recognize our futility ,” Kirkman says. “ Our lifespans are so short, we think in a different way, we think about society’s benefit, as opposed to our own benefit. Hopefully it’s an interesting contrast. It also might be a commentary on, maybe, maybe , how we could maybe do things a little differently [here on Earth].”

Nolan’s uncertainty suggests a possible better path for him, and invites questions about how much people can truly change. Forgiveness is pretty out of the question, considering what he’s done, but as his cellmate Allen the Alien (Seth Rogen) knows, he’d be a crucial ally in the fight to come. The one thing truly holding him back is his Viltrumite upbringing, and the distaste toward sympathy for “lesser” beings that has been drilled into him from childhood.

While Mark and Nolan are struggling to make sense of death outside of force or fear, others are forced to embrace it and channel it forward. Donald Ferguson (Chris Diamantopoulos) learns a terrifying truth about himself: He has been rebuilt as a robot after dying, with his memory of his death wiped. At first angry at the Global Defense Agency and its agents for rebuilding him without his consent, Ferguson later learns he has died and been rebuilt countless times, and that he was the one who decided to wipe his own memory.

Cecil Steadman and Donald Ferguson look at a computer monitor together in Invincible season 2

It’s a confusing, transformative moment for Donald. He goes from feeling like a tool to be used at the GDA’s disposal to understanding himself and his role in the world more completely than he ever has before. And he pays it forward by helping Rick (Jonathan Groff in season 1, Luke Macfarlane in season 2), who was also rebuilt as a robot after having his memory wiped. When he learns the truth about himself, Sheridan panics and threatens to end his own life, only for Ferguson to talk him down in a heartwarming scene that drives home that there is no one way to be a person.

“People get turned into robots all the time in comics,” Kirkman says. “But we’re trying to treat it like it’s this heartfelt, very depressing event that one guy has to help another guy through. You start to realize there’s something really touching about Donald accepting that his lot in life is to sacrifice himself for other people and that there is a value to that, and to take that on and learn from it and try to pass that on to Rick Sheridan. We’re just trying to wring emotion out of inherently silly superhero tropes.”

In typical Invincible fashion, it did this partly by balancing seemingly disparate tones. Kirkman says lulling the audience into a false sense of security with jokes — a Seance Dog bringing Mark to a reunion with Omni-Man, or a comic creator quipping about animation cutting corners — only to surprise them with a reveal is a trick he loves to pull, partly because he says audiences are getting savvy to narrative tricks after a “bombardment of content” from streaming services.

“It’s something that on the show has been somewhat difficult at times, because the tonal balance makes absolutely no sense whatsoever,” he says. “There’s almost no rules. It’s the weirdest tightrope to walk and sometimes board artists will be like, ‘Well, it’s a joke scene. So I’m gonna add this joke in the background.’ And [I’m] like, ‘No, this frame is very serious. And this frame is a joke. And I can’t explain why.’

“I mean, I’ll be honest with you, I don’t even know if I understand [the tone distinction]. And sometimes I watch episodes back, and I mean the finale especially, it’s just like Sandra Oh’s giving the performance of a lifetime. And then Mark pops out of a portal with a Fortnite gun. And I’m just like, Does this work? ”

But the balancing of those tones is one of the reasons the second season’s grappling with death hits so hard (and why the finale’s reveal that Dupli-Kate is alive feels meaningful). By actually engaging with all of the ridiculous elements of superhero lives — the serious, the silly, the dangerous, and the mundane — it means not only that anything is possible, but that the show has the space to be sincere about the unique challenges of superpowered life. It is precisely the feeling that any character could die at any time that makes Invincible ’s more lighthearted scenes feel so fun, and the silliness of those moments in turn makes those deaths all the more tragic. That’s what being human is all about, superpowers or not: balancing grief and joy. No amount of invincibility can teach you that.

Invincible is streaming on Prime Video .

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What the trans care recommendations from the NHS England report mean

The report calls for more research on puberty blockers and hormone therapies.

A new report commissioned by the National Health Service England advocates for further research on gender-affirming care for transgender youth and young adults.

Dr. Hillary Cass, a former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, was appointed by NHS England and NHS Improvement to chair the Independent Review of Gender Identity Services in 2020 amid a rise in referrals to NHS' gender services. Upon review, she advises "extreme caution" for the use of hormone therapies.

"It is absolutely right that children and young people, who may be dealing with a complex range of issues around their gender identity, get the best possible support and expertise throughout their care," Cass states in the report.

Around 2022, about 5,000 adolescents and children were referred to the NHS' gender services. The report estimated that roughly 20% of children and young people seen by the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) enter a hormone pathway -- roughly 1,000 people under 18 in England.

Following four years of data analysis, Cass concluded that "while a considerable amount of research has been published in this field, systematic evidence reviews demonstrated the poor quality of the published studies, meaning there is not a reliable evidence base upon which to make clinical decisions, or for children and their families to make informed choices."

Cass continued: "The strengths and weaknesses of the evidence base on the care of children and young people are often misrepresented and overstated, both in scientific publications and social debate," read the report.

Among her recommendations, she urged the NHS to increase the available workforce in this field, to work on setting up more regional outlets for care, increase investment in research on this care, and improve the quality of care to meet international guidelines.

Cass' review comes as the NHS continues to expand its children and young people's gender identity services across the country. The NHS has recently opened new children and young people's gender services based in London and the Northwest.

NHS England, the country's universal healthcare system, said the report is expected to guide and shape its use of gender affirming care in children and potentially impact youth patients in England accessing gender-affirming care.

PHOTO: Trans activists and protesters hold a banner and placards while marching towards the Hyde Park Corner, July 8, 2023.

MORE: Lawsuit filed by families against Ohio trans care ban legislation

The debate over transgender youth care.

In an interview with The Guardian , Cass stated that her findings are not intended to undermine the validity of trans identities or challenge young people's right to transition but to improve the care they are receiving.

"We've let them down because the research isn't good enough and we haven't got good data," Cass told the news outlet. "The toxicity of the debate is perpetuated by adults, and that itself is unfair to the children who are caught in the middle of it. The children are being used as a football and this is a group that we should be showing more compassion to."

In the report, Cass argued that the knowledge and expertise of "experienced clinicians who have reached different conclusions about the best approach to care" has been "dismissed and invalidated" amid arguments concerning transgender care in youth.

Cass did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment.

Recommendations for trans youth care

Cass is calling for more thorough research that looks at the "characteristics, interventions and outcomes" of NHS gender service patients concerning puberty blockers and hormone therapy, particularly among children and adolescents.

The report's recommendations also urge caregivers to take an approach to care that considers young patients "holistically and not solely in terms of their gender-related distress."

The report notes that identity exploration is "a completely natural process during childhood and adolescence."

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Cass recommends that pre-pubertal children and their families have early discussions about how parents can best support their child "in a balanced and non-judgemental way," which may include "psychological and psychopharmacological treatments" to manage distress associated with gender incongruence and co-occurring conditions.

In past interviews, U.S. physicians told ABC News , that patients, their physicians and their families often engage in a lengthy process of building a customized and individualized approach to care, meaning not every patient will receive any or every type of gender-affirming medical care option.

Cass' report states that evidence particularly for puberty blockers in children and adolescents is "weak" regarding the impact on "gender dysphoria, mental or psychosocial health. The effect on cognitive and psychosexual development remains unknown."

PHOTO:A photograph taken on April 10, 2024, in London, shows the entrance of the NHS Tavistock center, where the Tavistock Clinic hosted the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) for children until March 28, 2024.

The NHS has said it will halt routine use of puberty blockers as it prepares for a study into the practice later this year.

MORE: Amid anti-LGBTQ efforts, transgender community finds joy in 'chosen families'

According to the Endocrine Society puberty blockers, as opposed to hormone therapy, temporarily pause puberty so patients have more time to explore their gender identity.

The report also recommends "extreme caution" for transgender youth from age 16 who take more permanent hormone therapies.

"There should be a clear clinical rationale for providing hormones at this stage rather than waiting until an individual reaches 18," the report's recommendations state.

Hormone therapy, according to the Endocrine Society , triggers physical changes like hair growth, muscle development, body fat and more, that can help better align the body with a person's gender identity. It's not unusual for patients to stop hormone therapy and decide that they have transitioned as far as they wish, physicians have told ABC News.

Cass' report asserts that there are many unknowns about the use of both puberty blockers and hormones for minors, "despite their longstanding use in the adult transgender population."

"The lack of long-term follow-up data on those commencing treatment at an earlier age means we have inadequate information about the range of outcomes for this group," the report states.

Cass recommends that NHS England facilities have procedures in place to follow up with 17 to 25-year-old patients "to ensure continuity of care and support at a potentially vulnerable stage in their journey," as well as allow for further data and research on transgender minors through the years.

Several British medical organizations, including British Psychological Society and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, commended the report's recommendations to expand the workforce and invest in further research to allow young people to make better informed decisions.

“Dr Cass and her team have produced a thought-provoking, detailed and wide-ranging list of recommendations, which will have implications for all professionals working with gender-questioning children and young people," said Dr Roman Raczka, of the British Psychological Society. "It will take time to carefully review and respond to the whole report, but I am sure that psychology, as a profession, will reflect and learn lessons from the review, its findings and recommendations."

Some groups expressed fears that the report will be misused by anti-transgender groups.

"All children have the right to access specialist effective care on time and must be afforded the privacy to make decisions that are appropriate for them in consultation with a specialist," said human rights group Amnesty International. "This review is being weaponised by people who revel in spreading disinformation and myths about healthcare for trans young people."

Transgender care for people under 18 has been a source of contention in both the United States and the United Kingdom. Legislation is being pushed across the U.S. by many Republican legislators focused on banning all medical care options like puberty blockers and hormone therapies for minors. Some argue that gender-affirming care is unsafe for youth, or that they should wait until they're older.

Gender-affirming medical does come with risks, according to the Endocrine Society , including impacts to bone mineral density, cholesterol levels, and blood clot risks. However, physicians have told ABC News that all medications, surgeries or vaccines come with some kind of risk.

Major national medical associations in the U.S., including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and more than 20 others have argued that gender-affirming care is safe, effective, beneficial, and medically necessary.

The first-of-its-kind gender care clinic at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Maryland opened in the 1960s, using similar procedures still used today.

Some studies have shown that some gender-affirming options can have positive impacts on the mental health of transgender patients, who may experience gender-related stress.

School grants, student pronouns and library books among the big bills of Idaho legislative session

Apr 11, 3:08 PM

Tennessee GOP senators OK criminalizing helping minors get transgender care, mimicking abortion bill

Apr 11, 2:06 PM

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Book Review: 'The Means,' by Amy Fusselman; 'Identitti,' by Mithu
The latter is the case in Amy Fusselman's THE MEANS (242 pp., Mariner Books, ... top authors and critics join the Book Review's podcast to talk about the latest news in the literary world.
The Means by Amy Fusselman
The Means is sarcastic and somewhat snarky but also entertaining. There's light neighborhood drama and a "keeping up with the Joneses" vibe. While it was entertaining, I can't say I connected much with the characters. Thank you to NetGalley and Mariner Books for providing an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.
THE MEANS
The dark and light sides of friendship breathlessly explored in a novel best saved for summer beachside reading. Pub Date: May 8, 1998. ISBN: -385-32405-7. Page Count: 336. Publisher: Delacorte. Review Posted Online: May 20, 2010. Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1998. Categories: GENERAL FICTION. Share your opinion of this book.
Summary and reviews of The Means by Amy Fusselman
Book Summary. The debut novel from "wholly original" (Vogue) memoirist Amy Fusselman, a tragicomic family saga that skewers contemporary issues of money, motherhood, and class through a well-to-do woman's quest to buy a Hamptons beach house. Shelly Means, a wealthy stay-at-home mom and disgraced former PTA president, is poised to get the one ...
Amazon.com: The Means: A Novel: 9780063248717: Fusselman, Amy: Books
Shelly Means, a stay-at-home mom and disgraced former PTA president, is poised to get the one thing in life she really wants: a beach house in the Hamptons. Surely, once she has her beach house, Shelly will at last feel at peace, in control, and content. It might be a very small house, and it might be in the least-fancy part of the Hamptons ...
The Means: A Novel: Fusselman, Amy: 9780063248724: Amazon.com: Books
Amy Fusselman is the author of five books. Her latest, The Mean$, is her first novel. Fusselman's previous four books, all nonfiction, have been translated into several languages. Her work has been nominated for The Believer Book Award and the University of Iowa's Krause Essay Prize. Her articles and essays have appeared in The New York Times ...
The Means by Amy Fusselman [Book Review]
The Picky Bookworm's review on The Means by Amy Fusselman is an insight into a satircal, humorous book, and she hopes you enjoy! Skip to content. Search for: 81821. The Picky Bookworm. Books - Authors - Community. ... The Means by Amy Fusselman [Book Review] 02/01/2023 09/09/2023 The Picky Bookworm.
The Means: A Novel Kindle Edition
The Means: A Novel - Kindle edition by Fusselman, Amy. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading The Means: A Novel.
The Means
Shelly Means, a stay-at-home mom and disgraced former PTA president, is poised to get the one thing in life she really wants: a beach house in the Hamptons. Surely, once she has her beach house, Shelly will at last feel at peace, in control, and content. It might be a very small house, and it might be in the least-fancy part of the Hamptons ...
The Means: A Novel by Amy Fusselman, Paperback
"The Means is such a fast-paced, breezy comedic novel that you may find yourself surprised that Fusselman deftly and directly leads you to existential dilemmas and the absurdity of capitalism and striving for more." - The Millions ... — New York Times Book Review "With its deadpan absurdity, pithy prose and moral je ne sais quoi, Fusselman ...
Book Review: The Means by Amy Fusselman
The is the story about the Means family. They live in NYC and are the proud owners of a plot of land in the Hamptons. Their land is fairly small, triangular, and infested with ticks. ... Book Review: Life and Other Inconveniences by Kristan Higgins. Mar 18 2023. Audiobooks, Book Reviews, Young Adult Books.
The Means by Douglas Brunt
Douglas Brunt. 3.45. 696 ratings81 reviews. Part Primary Colors, part All The King's Men, The Means follows two complicated presidential candidates--and the equally ambitious rising-star journalist who is learning what it takes to get the story right. Tom Pauley is a respected trial attorney in Durham, North Carolina, who is tapped by GOP ...
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book review: [noun] a descriptive and critical or evaluative account of a book.
Book Review
Frank O'Hara's "Having a Coke With You" makes a charming first impression, and right away you want to get to know it better. By A.O. Scott Lesa Cline-Ransome's new novel in verse adds ...
Book review
A book review is a form of literary criticism in which a book is merely described (summary review) or analyzed based on content, style, and merit. [1] A book review may be a primary source, an opinion piece, a summary review, or a scholarly view. [2] Books can be reviewed for printed periodicals, magazines, and newspapers, as school work, or ...
The Means a book by Amy Fusselman
Description "The Means is such a fast-paced, breezy comedic novel that you may find yourself surprised that Fusselman deftly and directly leads you to existential dilemmas and the absurdity of capitalism and striving for more." - The Millions. Shelly Means, a stay-at-home mom and disgraced former PTA president, is poised to get the one thing in life she really wants: a beach house in the Hamptons.
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4 tips for writing a book review. 1. Avoid repetition. A book review is its own piece of writing. By that, we mean your book review shouldn't just repeat the book's plot. It should add a new perspective about the book. 2. Be concise. Don't ramble in your book review.
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Book reviews mean to serve as research of a book or topic. Book reviews typically range from 500 to 2,000 words in length and provide critical analysis of the book being reviewed. Book reviews ...
The Hidden Story of the North's Victory in the Civil War
A vast literature exists on nearly every aspect of the Civil War. But Roger Lowenstein's "Ways and Means," an account of the Union's financial policies, examines a subject long ...
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Book Review Template. The book review format includes an introduction, body, and conclusion. Introduction. Describe the book cover and title. Include any subtitles at this stage. Include the Author's Name. Thesis. Write a brief description of the novel. Briefly introduce the main points of the body in your book review.
'Ways and Means' Review: Financing the Civil War
In "Ways and Means," Mr. Lowenstein, a onetime reporter for this newspaper and the author of books on Warren Buffett and the Federal Reserve, makes what subsequently occurred at Treasury and ...
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The US Review of Books connects authors with professional book reviewers and places their book reviews in front of 22,415 subscribers to our free monthly newsletter of fiction book reviews and nonfiction book reviews. Learn why our publication is different than most others, or read author and publisher testimonials about the USR.
Book Review
Book Review Definition & Meaning. A book review is an evaluation document that contains information about newly released books with a brief description of the book's main ideas, like its theme and characters.. A book review also contains a short outline of the strengths and weaknesses of the book for a thorough evaluation coming from the reviewer to the author.
Eleanor Catton Wants Plot to Matter Again
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The 10 Best Books of 2023 This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. Distribution and use of this material are governed by our Subscriber Agreement and by copyright law.
Book Review: On the Nature, Limits, Meaning, and End of Work by Zachary
Book Review: On the Nature, Limits, Meaning, and End of Work by Zachary Thomas Settle
Pulitzer finalist Annie Jacobsen on her terrifying new book Nuclear War
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Amazon's Invincible season 2 is all about death
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The Center for Humanities & the Arts (CHA) invites Maia Kobabe and Gabrielle Calvocoressi to be in conversation about attacks against queer and nonbinary people and works, as well as amplifying the art of our speakers. The guest speakers will help us think about "liberty," "freedom," and "democracy" and what these words mean for them as nonbinary artists and how the audience can be advocates ...
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