Though it’s a vivid reminder that childhood is a foreign country, the book is way too long and self-indulgent.
A child’s vision of his rough-and-tumble world occupies the latest from Scottish author Kelman (You Have to Be Careful in the Land of the Free, 2004, etc.).
For Kieron, it’s all a matter of size. There are big boys and wee boys, and Kieron is a wee boy. Later, other distinctions emerge. In his native Glasgow, there are Papes (Catholics) and Proddies (Protestants). Members of the rival religions lead separate lives, though Kieron (a Protestant) has a few Catholic friends. He tells his story pell-mell; the syntax is disjointed; dialect words add flavor to his rambling account. Kieron lives in cramped quarters with his mother and unfriendly big brother Matt (size again). Tensions mount when his grumpy father leaves the Merchant Marine to take a factory job. Kieron finds more love at his grandparents’ place. There are soccer games with his pals, but best of all is climbing: walls, trees and drainpipes (his specialty). The joy of physical exertion saves him from an otherwise dreary childhood of petty restrictions. Kelman doesn’t supply a plot and leaves characterization fuzzy, but he captures Kieron’s consciousness and character formation as he interprets the world and argues with himself. This inner dialogue is often circular and tedious, but there is one moment, after Kieron experiences the death of a loved one, when he lets rip in a fine transcendent passage that marks him as a young fatalist. He turns 12 and goes to a new school, which he hates (all that homework), slipping into truancy as he gets a small job making deliveries. He dreams of running away with his best friend Mitch, a freeloader who steals from his folks, and finds relief in swearing (formerly taboo). He’s at the threshold of sexual adventure, but he seems headed for a bleak future in the underclass.
Though it’s a vivid reminder that childhood is a foreign country, the book is way too long and self-indulgent.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-15-101348-7
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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