David Rapp

United States

Indie Editor at Kirkus Reviews

@KirkusReviews. All opinions my own. He/him.

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Articles

Prime Video’s ‘We Were Liars’: Let’s Twist Again

1 week ago | kirkusreviews.com | David Rapp

Sometimes, novelists like to shake a story up with a dramatic late-in-the-game revelation that makes readers reconsider everything that came before it. In Gone Girl, the smash 2012 bestseller by Gillian Flynn, a major character’s confession at the halfway point suddenly turns a straightforward missing-person mystery into a knotty tale of deception and revenge.
‘The Life of Chuck’: Stephen King Tale Inspires

3 weeks ago | kirkusreviews.com | David Rapp

Stephen King’s Kirkus-starred 2020 novella collection, If It Bleeds, features some of the horror master’s most intriguing tales of recent years.
4 New Adaptations To Watch in June

1 month ago | kirkusreviews.com | David Rapp

Stay tuned for Kirkus’ in-depth columns on The Life of Chuck, a theatrical film based on the Stephen King novella, which appeared in his Kirkus-starred collection If It Bleeds (premiering June 6); and We Were Liars, a Prime Video series based on the YA novel by E. Lockhart, which also received a Kirkus star (premiering June 18).
‘Fear Street: Prom Queen’: ’80s-Style Horror Redux

1 month ago | kirkusreviews.com | David Rapp

In 2021, Netflix released three interconnected Fear Street films, very loosely based on a long-running series of YA horror novels by R.L. Stine. They tell the story of a string of murders in the fictional town of Shadyside, which take place over hundreds of years. In 1666, a teenage girl is hanged for alleged witchcraft; in 1978, a mass killing of kids occurs at local Camp Nightwing; and in 1994, teens are knifed outside a B. Dalton, bread-sliced in a supermarket, and so on.
Netflix’s ‘Forever’: A Judy Blume Classic Updated

1 month ago | kirkusreviews.com | David Rapp

In Kirkus’ review of Judy Blume’s 1975 YA novel Forever…, our reviewer pointed out that “increasingly Judy Blume's books center on single topics.” Her classic 1970 middle-grade novel, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret., is generally remembered as the author’s girl-hits-puberty book, and Forever… might be called her teen-loses-virginity novel. The books do address these topics—in frank, sensitive, and realistic ways—but it’s unfair to reduce either book to a mere blurb. Are You There God?
‘On Swift Horses’: A Melodrama at Full Gallop

2 months ago | kirkusreviews.com | David Rapp

Shannon Pufahl’s Kirkus-starred 2019 novel, On Swift Horses, feels more like a tone poem than a narrative with a clear beginning, middle, and end. It tells the largely separate stories of two queer characters: a young wife in 1950s California, and her drifter brother-in-law in Nevada, both struggling along as they seek an ineffable something to complete their unsatisfying lives.
Best of the Century (So Far): Kirkus Indie Picks

Mar 29, 2025 | kirkusreviews.com | David Rapp

The first quarter of the 21st century has seen an explosion of self-published books, including some that went on to become bestsellers. E.L. James’ erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey (2011), for instance, was a notable smash, and the SF thriller The Martian (2014), which first appeared on author Andy Weir’s website, went on to be adapted as an Oscar-nominated 2015 film.
‘Long Bright River’: Peacock’s Slow-Moving Mystery

Mar 12, 2025 | kirkusreviews.com | David Rapp

Liz Moore’s 2020 novel, Long Bright River, features a police-officer protagonist, a serial killer, and a missing woman—but to call it a mystery, or even a thriller, feels like a stretch. It’s mainly the story of the cop’s relationship with her deeply dysfunctional family, which has been torn apart by drug abuse for two generations, and for long sections there’s scarcely a mention of the killer stalking the streets of Philadelphia, murdering women with impunity.
3 Picture Books for Kids Who Love To Make Music

Mar 6, 2025 | kirkusreviews.com | David Rapp

Many amateur and professional musicians tell stories of first performing songs when they were children, whether taking piano lessons, attending choir practice, playing “Michael, Row the Boat Ashore” on a kid-sized guitar, or singing along with pop hits on the radio. It’s no wonder, then, that so many books for very young readers are about playing music live—with all the noise, anxiety, and wonder that experience entails.
‘Queen of the Ring’: A Champion Adaptation

Mar 6, 2025 | kirkusreviews.com | David Rapp

Jeff Leen’s excellent 2007 biography, The Queen of the Ring: Sex, Muscles, Diamonds, and the Making of an American Legend, tells the story of Mildred Burke, a world champion wrestler from the 1930s to the ’50s who helped to popularize women’s professional wrestling worldwide. She faced many troubles in her life, most of them related to her her abusive, philandering husband and manager, Billy Wolfe.