Portrait of the writer as a young drama queen: entertaining enough, but at the same time both a bit much and not much more.
An episodic chronicle about low self-esteem that's intelligent and well observed but mired in a callow attitude devoid of perspective.
Lacking the goofy charm of Bridget Jones or the satisfying growth and closure of High Fidelity, this memoir-ish debut offers instead the biting cynicism and self-lacerating humor of a prematurely embittered young sophisticate manqué. Each chapter-or, perhaps more properly, story, as this is as much collection as novel-is named for one of the boys or men who Phoebe Fine, passing from the age of 11 to 25, has used to define herself. Growing up in suburban New Jersey in the '70s and '80s, the daughter of effete, ineffectual, classical musician parents, Phoebe, smart, Jewish, and pretty, lacks any sense of self-worth. Sent to a private school full of rich kids, dressed unfashionably or in designer seconds, Phoebe, who plays the violin and runs track, settles into the role of outsider. Starting with Stinky Mancuso, hardcore bad boy of the fifth grade, though (who-inexplicably, to Phoebe-takes a liking to her and then disappears), she forges an identity from the attention of men. As Phoebe goes from prep school to college sorority (with bouts of anorexia and bulimia) and on to New York City, Rosenfeld recounts her affairs. Spitty Clark, a solicitous, not-too-bright frat boy, turns out to have a reputation as a date-rapist; Phoebe embraces him to defy her condescending sorority sisters. Claude Duvet is the Frenchman she imagines she'll meet in Paris, but he never materializes and she returns home, defeated. Phoebe seduces Bruce Bledstone, a married college professor, but his intellectual aloofness, which lets her imagine herself as part of a more rarefied world than that of her peers, turns against her and makes their affair into an excruciatingly drawn-out thing. And so on.
Portrait of the writer as a young drama queen: entertaining enough, but at the same time both a bit much and not much more.Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2000
ISBN: 0-375-50375-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2000
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
