A sometimes-exciting but ultimately meandering portrait of a society gone horribly wrong.
In Tadros’ (The War of the Words, 2013, etc.) terrifying future tale, one man resists the total control of the state in a last-ditch attempt to save a world in disarray.
It’s the 23rd century, and the Occidental Union controls the world. Its rulers have successfully brainwashed a poor, blindly dependent public into supporting its supposedly collectivist politic. However, despite its power, the state fails to meet even the basic needs of its population. One man tells of his own personal rebellion as the Occidental Union tries to keep power in an increasingly chaotic world. The disillusioned narrator is inspired by his visits to the idyllic Free Islands, which are home to the last strongholds of the Coptic Orthodox Christian community. With his dog, Anup, he braves disorder, disease and countless adversaries in an attempt to discover the truth behind the state’s secret plan, the aptly named Project United We Fall. As in all dystopian stories, the slow elaboration of the speculative setting is the main thrill here. Tadros’ academic vocabulary and tendency toward explanation lend themselves to such a book, which is ultimately a cautionary tale—a worst-case scenario for an unchecked welfare state and a perverted rhetoric of social justice. Indeed, the old-school liberal philosophy underpinning the book is fairly explicit: Tadros writes that the Union’s ideology of “Scientism–Collectivism searches for the one grand theory to unify everything and everyone. It is the final assault against the individual and individual experience in the pursuit of Enlightenment-driven progress.” Such clear political tensions, featuring obvious “good” and “bad” guys, frequently drown potentially lively action scenes in extended reflections on the merits of individual rights, as exemplified by other thinkers, such as Aldous Huxley and Thomas Hobbes. Even though many readers may agree with these principles, the book’s bold emphasis on them often works against the story.
A sometimes-exciting but ultimately meandering portrait of a society gone horribly wrong.Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2013
ISBN: 978-0987553027
Page Count: 308
Publisher: Nightlight Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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