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AN UNCOMMON EDUCATION

Name: AN UNCOMMON EDUCATION
Author: Elizabeth Percer
ISBN: 978-0-06-211096-1

by Elizabeth Percer ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2012

A subdued, thoughtful coming-of-age tale that hovers observantly on the edge of melancholia.

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Bonds of love, family and friendship, sometimes damaged or beyond repair, are nevertheless celebrated in an intense debut by a noted poet.

Naomi Feinstein, the misfit child of misfit parents—an orphaned immigrant Jewish father and a depressed Catholic mother—grows up clever but lonely in Brookline, Mass., convinced by her father’s heart attack that her destiny lies in cardiac medicine. Friendship with Teddy, the boy next door, turns into an early but enduring love. However Teddy moves away, leaving Naomi alone once more while still questing for a closer relationship with her troubled mother. Accepted at Wellesley College, Naomi leaves home only to find that college life is just as solitary until a sudden act of heroism on her part leads to acceptance by the Shakespeare Society and friendships, notably with a privileged Japanese girl, Jun Oko. Although Naomi’s insularity becomes somewhat diminished, darker events will swallow three of the people she cares most about, and the largest lesson she must learn is that she cannot save any of them. Her efforts to do so and eventual emergence from sadness are charted with restraint and empathy in Percer’s lyrical, slightly dreamy narrative.

A subdued, thoughtful coming-of-age tale that hovers observantly on the edge of melancholia.

Pub Date: May 1, 2012

ISBN: 978-0-06-211096-1

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: April 17, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2012

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.

Pub Date: May 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-345-45073-6

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.