Two books landed in Kirkus's review pages that belong side by side. One introduces Kylie Kaiser of Fort Empire, Iowa — pink-haired, forty-something, twenty years a mall custodian — who dreams of building an empire around Punk Piglets, inspirational miniature ceramic pig figurines, with the proceeds going to animal welfare. The other follows an octogenarian veteran journalist and his wife as they set out in early 2026 to finish their lifelong travel bucket list, boarding three different cruise ships to get from Fort Lauderdale to Australia.
F. Scott Fitzgerald famously cracked that there are no second acts in American lives. Literature has been arguing with him ever since — and this week's literary news reads like the case for the defense.
Kirkus predicts readers will admire the travelers' "chutzpah," and chutzpah is the right word for Kylie too: two decades scrubbing the same mall and still certain the piglet empire is coming, right up until the mayor arrives with news about the mall itself.