In Linse’s (How to Be a Man, 2014) novel, three orphaned siblings must rely on each other through a host of tragedies and triumphs.
CJ, Tibs and Maggie are siblings whose lives fell apart when, during their childhood, their parents were killed in an accident. Their relationships with each as adults other are fraught, and their coping mechanisms, poor. CJ, the eldest, throws herself into her bartending job and relationships with unavailable men. Tibs idolizes Ernest Hemingway and dreams of becoming an author but can’t bring himself to actually begin writing. And sweet Maggie, the youngest, throws a wrench into all of their lives when she falls for Jackdaw, a macho cowboy. When Maggie gets pregnant, Jackdaw reluctantly agrees to marry her but then withdraws completely when their child is born with spina bifida, leaving Maggie to rely on her siblings for support. Linse certainly has a feel for the world of rodeos, ranches and the West. Her descriptions ably evoke the landscape, with its “long string of beaver ponds that ripple and dazzle in the light.” However, certain plot developments—a sudden pregnancy, the birth of a special needs child—don’t feel organic to the narrative. Instead, the story turns into a soap opera, particularly when, late in the novel, an unexpected love triangle develops and is left unresolved. Furthermore, the story is divided into short chapters that alternate perspectives among the four main characters. While this can certainly be an effective storytelling technique, the chapters are so short (sometimes just a page or two), the transitions feel jarred and choppy. Each character therefore feels a little underdeveloped, left to the devices of the machinery of the plot. Ultimately, the story has its poignant elements but feels a little too trite for its own good.
A moving but uneven depiction of a family struggling through loss.
Pub Date: July 2, 2014
ISBN: 978-0991386734
Page Count: 328
Publisher: Willow Words
Review Posted Online: July 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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