The unrelenting cleverness gets tiring, although the one-liners frequently ring uncomfortably true.
From the nastily comic Barrowcliffe (Girlfriend 44, 2001), the perfect Hugh Grant vehicle about a too-clever-by-half Londoner who faces a stew of moral and emotional crises when he learns that both his fiancé and his much younger girlfriend are joyfully pregnant, thanks to him.
In his mid-30s, Dag has been living with Andrea for eight years when he finally proposes. Although they don’t spend much time together, he is reasonably confident of their love—and, besides, he’s ready to settle down like all his pals. But soon after the engagement is official, he meets and begins a highly charged affair with Cat, omitting to tell the 24-year-old journalist he’s committed elsewhere. When Andrea announces her pregnancy, Dag knows he should break off with Cat, but before he can, Cat makes her own maternity announcement. To complicate matters, Cat is having twins, and Andrea’s father is dying of cancer. Does Dag stay with Andrea, for whom he feels the greater responsibility and a genuine long-term affection, or go with Cat, with whom he is head over heels? Best friend and business partner Henderson, who’s in hiding from his dangerous ex-wife, isn’t much help. In fact, he may be competing with Dag for Cat’s affections. Finally Dag comes clean to Cat and returns to Andrea. Under the pretext of journalism—an article on pregnant professional women—Cat sets up an interview with Andrea. Desperate, Dag has their meeting secretly videotaped and learns that Andrea has been at least as unfaithful to him as he’s been to her. But before he can use this information to sort out his relationships, he’s beaten by thugs, and Henderson, apparently the intended victim, promptly disappears. So, coincidently, does Cat, at least until the babies start arriving—same day, same hospital. Barrowcliffe performs gymnastic feats of plotting to ensure happy endings for all.
The unrelenting cleverness gets tiring, although the one-liners frequently ring uncomfortably true.Pub Date: June 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-312-29146-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2002
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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