A modern romance of mixed signals and drunken Friday nights.
In Harper’s debut novel, a book lover and a party boy explore their friendship, but their egos threaten to destroy what they have.
Jenna and Nick are both 20-somethings, but they have little else in common. She’s a secretary living in a modest apartment who’d rather be at the library on a Friday night. However, she decides that she wants some excitement in her life, so she hangs out with Nick and his hard-partying friends. He’s always encouraging her to have fun, whether at the bar or at one of his own get-togethers. He and his brother, Ben, live in their retired parents’ house and run the family-owned business. However, Nick is more concerned with getting girls’ numbers and throwing pool parties than he is with working. Although Jenna and Nick are “just friends,” he begins to notice more and more flirtation between them. When they share a drunken kiss, he can’t stop fantasizing about being with her—even if he isn’t ready to admit it. The tension builds until Jenna lets go of her inhibitions and they take their relationship past the point of no return. It remains to be seen if Nick will step up and show Jenna that he really cares. Harper captures the frustrating reality of modern dating, including the endless misinterpretations and fears of rejection. Jenna is a strong character who also finds the courage to be a bit vulnerable with Nick. Without this key moment of vulnerability, the book’s sexual tension would have become overly repetitive. Overall, the novel is very plot-driven, leaving little room to delve deeply into the nature of the central friendship-turned–love affair, but it does interestingly give Nick the same amount of attention as it does Jenna. The 20-something set will likely identify with this romantic tale, which ultimately captures the key to a successful relationship: letting down one’s guard.
A modern romance of mixed signals and drunken Friday nights.Pub Date: March 5, 2015
ISBN: 978-0692320570
Page Count: 294
Publisher: Piglaty Press
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2015
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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