Warmhearted (if a bit uneven) tale of a sensitive man’s journey through life.
A pleasing character study following the life of Joe Andreson, from his misadventures in high school to reflective middle age.
Although Joe narrates his tale, it is a story dominated by women, from his kind-hearted, widowed mother and his sophisticated lesbian aunt Beth (the three live together, gathering around the piano to sing show tunes) to the two young women who shape his adult life—Kristi Casey and Darva Pratt. In high school, Kristi is the golden girl—head cheerleader, honor student, feared and revered by all who come in contact with her ferocious smile. At turns cruel and alluring, Kristi takes a shine to Joe and the two have trysts in the AV room, a secret kept from Kristi’s boyfriend. Joe even keeps it from his best friend Darva, a gifted artist and bourgeoning bohemian with plans to escape 1970s Minneapolis for Paris. Darva does go to Paris, while Joe goes to college on a hockey scholarship. Kristi and Joe meet from time to time in rural motels, but their relationship is little more than a strange mix of Kristi’s confessions and impersonal sex. After graduation Kristi disappears, Joe inherits a grocery store and Darva returns from Europe, with tiny Flora in her arms. Though they maintain a platonic relationship, Darva and Joe live together and raise Flora, as Joe makes a success out of the market, thanks to his idiosyncratic approach to business. Meanwhile, Kristi reappears on the air as a right-wing evangelist doling out moral platitudes to her radio listeners. Joe and company are shocked by Kristi’s new persona, and yet the girl most likely to succeed at any cost still has a few surprises left for the folks back home. Most of Joe’s story is a real charmer—the questioning, sex-obsessed teen, the slightly lost 30 year old—but as the story creeps past middle age, Landvik (Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons, 2003, etc.) seems to tire, and the narrative wraps up with the expected closing events.
Warmhearted (if a bit uneven) tale of a sensitive man’s journey through life.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-345-46837-6
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2007
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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