by Nazli Ghassemi ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 13, 2013
Engaging women’s fiction with an international twist.
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An engaging debut novel of romance, parties, and expatriate life in Dubai.
Maya, a globe-trotting freelancer and poet, has a complex, international background: She was born in Wisconsin to an American mother and an Iranian father, spent her childhood in Tehran, and went to school in Switzerland during the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Now, after four years as an adult in Dubai, she’s become accustomed to the rhythms of the global city, as have her friends—on-the-go Arkansan Janet, Lebanese human resources manager Michele, and gay Pakistani-British Asif, among others. Her biggest problem is figuring out whether her relationship with American businessman Mark, a newcomer to Dubai, is romantic or not. Author Ghassemi provides a detailed portrait of the city’s malls, bars and indoor ski parks. Although her novel focuses mainly on the adventures and dramas of Maya and her friends, it also looks at the city’s less luxuriant side, including the Filipino service workers and Indian construction workers who keep the city growing and operating. The book also explores what it means for a nominally Muslim region to depend on the presence of a mostly secular, Western-influenced population. The women’s determined consumption of alcohol shows one of the more frivolous aspects of this cultural balancing act, but the book moves into deeper territory when it depicts Maya and Mark’s trip to the Iranian island of Kish or Asif’s struggle to share his life in Dubai with his husband. This is a fundamentally upbeat story, however, with happy endings in store for nearly everyone. The strong prose will likely keep readers turning pages, particularly its Arabic-sprinkled dialogue and Maya’s snappy comebacks (“Hello, prosthetic skyline”).
Engaging women’s fiction with an international twist.Pub Date: May 13, 2013
ISBN: 978-0985300906
Page Count: 292
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 7, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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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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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