This novel’s romantic problems often fall into routine patterns, but Leuthold’s insights into the transformative power of...
Leuthold’s debut novel explores the lives and loves of an author and one of her devoted readers.
Alexandria Zenobia “Xan” Alexander enjoys her successful career as a writer. Under the pen name XZA, she’s published several edgy, controversial novels that explore the challenges faced by young women. She’s strong and independent, particularly when it comes to relationships. At a book signing, she impulsively flirts with a handsome book reviewer named Michael Singer. Ten years later, Xan is living with him and struggling to find the perfect ending to her latest book. At the same time, she’s trying to come to terms with her past in order to understand why her relationship with Michael has endured. As Xan’s story unfolds, Leuthold offers a parallel narrative about a college student named Jessie. When she receives an unexpected gift of one of Xan’s novels from a former student named Willa, it reignites their friendship. As they bond over the book, Jessie starts to re-evaluate her school and career goals and her on-again, off-again relationship with her unsupportive boyfriend, Dick. Jessie provides an intriguing foil for Xan; although they’re at different stages in their lives, both question why they’re staying in their respective relationships. Unfortunately, these relationships also provide some of the book’s weaker moments. Michael is the perfect lover, caring, loyal and supportive, while Dick is rude, boorish and belittling, which leads to clichéd dilemmas, such as Xan wondering why she’s unable to say “I love you” to Michael and Jessie reflecting on why she clings to her unhealthy relationship. However, the author does skillfully keep the two main plots and multiple supporting characters clear and cohesive while also weaving in passages from XZA’s books. As the chapters alternate between Xan’s and Jessie’s stories, the fictional book passages show Xan’s character and her point of view as a writer.
This novel’s romantic problems often fall into routine patterns, but Leuthold’s insights into the transformative power of literature keep the narrative from becoming predictable.Pub Date: Nov. 24, 2013
ISBN: 978-0991131914
Page Count: 354
Publisher: Green Hill Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 26, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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