A straightforward, all-American romance, elevated by sharp plotting and a companionable cast of characters.
Calendar’s debut novel is a sweet, clever story of young love in 1960s and ’70s South Carolina.
Danny McDowell and Ariel Buchanan are 9 and 5 years old, respectively, when they meet at their fathers’ company party, and their connection is instant and lasting. “Five and nine,” muse their mothers as they observe the children’s devotion to each other. “That would be one in a billion.” That four-year age gap serves as this story’s driving narrative device, and though Danny and Ariel’s relationship seems strange to begin with, the story evolves into a heartfelt, affecting exploration of friendship, love and growing up. Alone and together, Danny and Ariel face challenges large and small in their sleepy Southern town, from academic roadblocks to dying loved ones, but their greatest challenges are their feelings for each other. Some plot points and characters may feel a little too convenient, such as a benevolent but impossibly unprofessional hospital nurse who meddles in Danny and Ariel’s affairs. A subplot about their fathers’ tumultuous professional lives falls flat, and the town’s racial issues are mentioned only in passing—an odd omission, given the book’s setting. On the whole, however, Calendar delivers a meticulously constructed story, full of hairpin turns that are occasionally hokey but never predictable. The charming descriptions of the Buchanan family mansion, in particular, will be catnip enough for some readers. Most importantly, the novel rings true when depicting the authentic joys and pains of childhood and adolescence. Calendar’s easy, naturalistic dialogue is also an asset; for example, when Danny tells his mother that he hates shopping, she replies, “You’re supposed to hate shopping. It’s in the manual.” Such simple, human touches make up for occasional shortcomings in character development and lend the novel a warm, familiar atmosphere that lingers on after the final page.
A straightforward, all-American romance, elevated by sharp plotting and a companionable cast of characters.Pub Date: Aug. 10, 2012
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 289
Publisher: Murray Wolbach, III
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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