Though a little less anarchic and strange than the previous two works by Anya Davidson I’ve read, School Spirit and Band for Life, Night and Dana is aThough a little less anarchic and strange than the previous two works by Anya Davidson I’ve read, School Spirit and Band for Life, Night and Dana is a strong and perceptive depiction of being a teenager coming of age in an increasingly uncertain, maddening world. Lifelong friends Dana and Lily, bonded over monster movies, comics, and art, begin their senior year planning to leave their quaint Florida resort town and head to NYU together after graduation but their relationship begins to fray while working on a student film as Lily becomes smitten with another classmate, Wye.
Dana, feeling increasingly shut out of Lily’s life, shifts her interests to the local environmental movement protesting the city’s response to the increase of devastating red tides strengthened by climate change. Dana’s angst, even when it makes her not the most sympathetic person, is as understandable as it is realistic and as she works to find herself in the absence of her friend she channels her anger into activism. All in all, Davidson captures the shifting emotions and mix of unwelcome and yearned for changes of growing up, dealt with in both constructive and less mature ways that really brought me back to those years....more
After reading The Appeal earlier this year and finding it a classic page-turner British cozy mystery notable through its contemporary epistolary styleAfter reading The Appeal earlier this year and finding it a classic page-turner British cozy mystery notable through its contemporary epistolary style, telling its story solely through texts, emails, and documents, I thought it would be fun to check out its mini-sequel, the brief, breezy A Christmas Appeal. The Christmas season was, it turned out, mostly incidental (a mummified Father Christmas notwithstanding) so if you’re looking for something really Christmasy this might disappoint, I feel, but it follows Hallett’s fast-paced, suspenseful, and droll storytelling, so if you liked The Appeal it’s worth checking out.
Taking us back to the backstabbing, passive-aggressive mess that is the Fairway Players as they prepare a Christmas pantomime performance under new leadership after the unfortunate events of the previous novel, it seems rum doings are still afoot on and around the stage. Again, the reliance on correspondence makes it difficult to get a reading on the actual personalities and motivations of the characters who appear to mostly be insufferable social climbers, crims, or hopelessly “woke” and all no more than caricatures. In this case in particular, the addition of a pretty cringy “drugs” subplot and the more or less negligible inevitable murder does not add up to quite as much as the original. On the other hand, Hallett’s dry wit and penchant for madcap but understated absurdities definitely keep you reading. ...more
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