Amusing—but 400 pages of chat is too much. Even the big tragic scene that accounts for Laurie’s character feels lost in the...
Second outing by the author of the comic paranoid thriller A Conspiracy of Tall Men (1998).
At 36 and unmarried, wedding photographer Laurie has captured other people’s vows at over a thousand weddings during the past ten years. Not just vows but also “the future as a hot green meadow that rolls on for years. And I step up and capture it in one-five-hundredth of a second.” Looking over old work, Laurie wonders how many of these vows have held. Many have, and these folks are delighted by her offer of a free photo of them in their home today. Laurie photographs divorcées alone as “last standing.” Hollow 35-year-old ex-husbands hit on her. Her own loneliness doesn’t interest her; “it’s just a dead body handcuffed to my wrist.” Father went insane, mother died of cancer, younger sister Lisa can’t straighten out the men in her life. We find that Laurie was married for 14 months but never owns up to it. Then she spies Gilligan Ford III, a handsome smiling stranger, 42, who crashes weddings. She goes through her files and finds that he has crashed 11 of her last 12 weddings. At the latest Hindu affair, he tells he that he actually does know someone, having been introduced to him a half hour earlier. Doesn’t know his name, though. She accepts his dinner invitation. He takes her to the closed aquarium (for which he’s an accountant?), where he’s had a duck dinner set out by the shark tank. Her glass shell splinters. His wife died of cancer five years ago. Lisa uncovers that Gil has inherited his dead wife’s wealth. When Gil wants to know how Laurie knows this, she hides Lisa’s shame—and soon true love goes far astray.
Amusing—but 400 pages of chat is too much. Even the big tragic scene that accounts for Laurie’s character feels lost in the swash. Too many subplots, Mozart!Pub Date: June 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-312-32273-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2004
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
