by Judy Goldstein & Sebastian Stuart ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 13, 2006
Nice dialogue and pacing by Goldstein and Stuart (The Mentor, 1999) keep this Nanny clone racing along.
This summer's Nanny Diaries features a newly minted pediatrician working among the wacky rich on Manhattan's Upper East Side.
When Shelley Green, a “schlumpy girl from Jackson Heights,” accepts a position at Madison Pediatrics, she suspects her world is about to change, and not just because she's surrounded by svelte doctors wearing Chanel suits and Manolo Blahnik heels. Among those she meets are parents asking for a letter of recommendation—for a 15-month-old; a formerly famous folksinger who refuses to change her daughter's diapers because “they mess with my muse”; and a plastic surgeon hoping to trade services (“You take care of my daughter in return for two procedures”). Along with the bizarre requests, Shelley tries to identify the mysterious ailment of 12-year-old Alison Young, whose mother recently died of a cerebral aneurysm. Are Alison's symptoms a manifestation of grief, or something else? As Shelley consults with specialists and considers the possibilities, she spends her weekends in the Hamptons as a trophy live-in pediatrician. There she meets hunky Josh Potter, for whom she dumps her staid fiancé Arthur, until the anti-Semitism of the Hamptons rears its ugly head. “Did you get a load of Josh Potter's new meal ticket? I wonder where they met—a B'nai Brith mixer?” No surprises here: Readers know that Shelley will ultimately reject the superficial Upper East Side culture (and Josh) to return to her roots—and walking tours of Brooklyn with Arthur—but not without a drastic weight loss, a chic new haircut and designer duds of her own.
Nice dialogue and pacing by Goldstein and Stuart (The Mentor, 1999) keep this Nanny clone racing along.Pub Date: June 13, 2006
ISBN: 0-312-34327-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2006
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
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
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