Jubilee

Starred review from August 31, 2020
In Givhan’s intense, artfully woven psychological drama (after Trinity Sight), a woman treats a doll as if it is her living infant child. Bianca Vogelsang, 20, shows up at the home of her brother, Matty, bleeding and bruised, and insists a doll she’s carrying is her daughter, Jubilee. The reader soon comes to learn that the smart, ambitious Bianca, a poetry student of some promise in thrall to the work of Sandra Cisneros, had been in an abusive relationship with her high school sweetheart, Gabe, who convinced her to get an abortion at 15. Several months after Bianca shows up at Matty’s house, she kindles a romance with a fellow student Joshua Walker, and becomes pregnant again, but even thnen is unable to let go of her belief that Jubilee is her daughter. Givhan flashes back to when Bianca was pregnant at 15 and Gabe threatens to abandon her and sexually assaults her. Another flashback dovetails with the book’s climax and sheds more light on Bianca’s attachment to Jubilee, which has consequences for Matty and Joshua. Bianca’s repeated meditations on bodies of water as a source of life (“Rivers take, yes, but rivers bring back”) and the echoes of lines from Cisneros add rich lyrical layers to the fast-paced plot. Givhan rewards readers with a fiery story. Agent: Laura Blake Peterson, Curtis Brown.

September 1, 2020
This thought-provoking novel opens on Bianca, a young woman bleeding and in pain, driving through the night across the desert to her brother Matty's house in Santa Ana with everything she owns and a baby named Jubilee. When she arrives and promptly loses consciousness, Matty discovers that Jubilee isn't a baby?she's a doll. However, as Bianca recovers from her mysterious illness, it becomes clear that she believes Jubilee is her own daughter and cares for her as such. The rest of the story unfolds in two different timelines; the past in which teen Bianca navigates a tumultuous relationship with her first love, and the present in which she, with Jubilee in tow, begins a new romance with kindhearted Joshua. Givhan (Trinity Sight, 2019) expertly plays her cast of characters against one another, using small, personal moments to create seismic emotional shifts all while slowly unraveling the truth about Bianca's past and Jubilee's place in her life.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

September 1, 2020

Twenty-year-old Bianca Vogelsang's troubled life includes a tough childhood in a large Latinx family in southern California, an abusive boyfriend, two abortions, and estrangement from her mother. She has been rescued numerous times by her half brother Matty, a comic book illustrator, and his partner, Handro. Bianca's chaotic past, revealed in flashbacks, intrude on her current life with stable boyfriend Josh, who is guardian to his nephew and is working on a college degree in social work. Though understanding, Josh is puzzled by her fixation on a lifelike doll named Jubilee, which Bianca cares for like a real baby, lovingly feeding her and bringing her to family gatherings. Everyone accepts her bizarre behavior, blaming her past trauma. Eventually, Bianca moves forward, quitting her medications, earning a place in a writer's workshop, and marrying Josh and becoming pregnant. Life couldn't be better, but then an innocent question unleashes everything Josh has kept bottled up about his wife's still clinging to Jubilee, and Bianca must discover whether she has the inner strength to overcome her dark history. VERDICT From its heart-pounding opening, poet Givhan's second novel (after Trinity Sight) leads readers into the dark recesses of Bianca's traumatic experiences and subsequent healing.--Donna Bettencourt, Mesa Cty. P.L., Grand Junction, CO

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