A gruesome but underdeveloped portrait of child abuse.
Clemons’ (Soft Daggers, 2013, etc.) novel takes a harrowing journey into the mind of an abusive foster mother.
When Tristan becomes a foster parent for her half brother Ethan’s children, it ostensibly starts as a gesture of grace as Ethan rehabilitates from drug addiction, but soon plunges her into resentment and violent anger. She quickly starts to believe that the kids—Ellen, Jordan, Henry, Max and 16-month-old Megan—are intolerably encroaching on her marriage to Zach. Little Megan, in particular, bears the brunt of her fury; she’s routinely hit, force-fed scalding food and left to sit in her own waste. Tristan convinces doctors that Megan is withering away from an unidentifiable disease, but readers know the truth: Megan’s bruises are from Tristan’s assaults, and the blood collecting in the corners of Megan’s lips is from Tristan scraping the roof of her mouth with a feeding spoon. Zach doesn’t want to believe that the woman he married is a monster, so he deludes himself into not seeing what’s happening. Eventually, Megan dies from the constant torment (“Tristan reared back and punched the baby in the head...”), and Tristan faces both physical and mental punishment as a result. Clemons’ vivid descriptions of horrific scenes ring true and will likely create genuine discomfort for readers. However, aside from Megan’s abuse, there isn’t very much plot; the other children, for example, are given a few scenes but disappear for pages at a time. Zach never evolves as a character, and the rest of the supporting cast similarly comes off as flat. In addition, the chapter titles often telegraph upcoming plot points; for example, Megan dies in a chapter titled “Death Comes to an Angel: Everyone Knows.”
A gruesome but underdeveloped portrait of child abuse.Pub Date: May 27, 2013
ISBN: 978-1489582928
Page Count: 130
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2013
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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