Shine Shine Shine

This unusual, imaginative novel tells the story of Sunny, a woman dealing with lifelong baldness, and Maxon, her childhood friend and later husband, who is a genius who designs robots, is about to embark on a dangerous mission to space, and is unable to understand social cues. Narrator Joshilyn Jackson creates spot-on voices for the characters. For example, Sunny and Maxon’s autistic son, Bubber, has a voice described as “like a duck’s... if a duck sounded like a robot”—and that is exactly the voice Jackson lends him. Similarly, neighbor and television anchorman Les has a voice like that of Superman’s—and, obligingly, Jackson performs his dialogue in booming, larger-than-life tones. But despite these quirky character voices, Jackson never reduces the characters to caricatures. While she conveys all the book’s humor, her reading is also full of empathy, and she brings out the characters’ underlying humanity. For Maxon, Jackson reads in an even, logical, unemotional tone, but beneath that, listeners will hear his vulnerability. This masterful, flawless narration of a imaginative novel is something special and not to be missed. A St. Martin’s hardcover. (July)