by Bebe Moore Campbell ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 6, 2001
Another warmhearted, carefully crafted, if not especially original story from Campbell (Singing in the Comeback Choir, 1998,...
An Imitation of Life saga of two cleaning ladies, one black, one white.
Newly arrived in postwar Los Angeles from rural Texas, Hosanna Clark befriends Holocaust survivor Gilda Rosenstein. Both women toil for subsistence wages at a fleabag hotel, their friendship hampered by Gilda’s limited English and Hosanna’s suspicion of white people. Hosanna is impressed, however, by Gilda’s fragile strength, and Gilda, drawn to Hosanna’s hard-working cheerfulness. She concocts a special lotion for Hosanna’s ashy skin, and Hosanna quickly realizes its potential. The women scrimp and save to bottle the lotion, which Hosanna peddles to friends and fellow churchgoers, eventually going door-to-door. Gilda handles the business side, opening a checking account and banking their profits. Hosanna is heartbroken when the account is cleaned out and Gilda disappears. But she provides for her daughters Matriece and Vonette before a flash-forward reveals that Hosanna has died, although she remains a beneficent ghostly presence to Matriece, an up-and-coming marketing executive at Gilda’s million-dollar company, in charge of Brown Sugar, a new cosmetics line for black women. Gilda, now in her 70s, still feels guilt about Hosanna—and the bank account her first husband forced her to close. She doesn’t know that Matriece is Hosanna’s daughter, but she’s impressed by the young woman’s savvy and drive. Matriece, meantime, must choose between Montgomery, scion of a wealthy, influential black family, and Sam, a born-again ex-con who turns out to be the father of Asia Pace, a troubled young hip-hop diva who can’t decide whether she wants to be the spokesmodel for Brown Sugar. Eventually, Hosanna’s old friend and lover, a barbecue-restaurant entrepreneur, will uncover the facts behind Gilda’s long-ago betrayal—and threaten—to reveal all.
Another warmhearted, carefully crafted, if not especially original story from Campbell (Singing in the Comeback Choir, 1998, etc.).Pub Date: Aug. 6, 2001
ISBN: 0-399-14784-5
Page Count: 640
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2001
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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