While the storytelling can be confusing at times, this adventure offers a realistic, brutal look at the tumultuous war in...
A novel about the darkness of war as seen through a soldier’s eyes as he battles not only his daily routines but for his own sense of humanity.
In Iraq, soldier Thomas Edington feels he can’t get clean. It’s more than just the greasy water, which seems to leave a film between his skin and clothing. It goes beyond the blistering heat and the ubiquitous dust that coats his body from the moment he towels off. There’s also the realization that he is not safe and that his life can, and probably will, end without any warning. Things a normal man takes for granted—a warm meal, a comfortable bed, a loving wife—fade away as Edington does his daily rounds in this war-torn land. He’s in the middle of a war where suicide bombings are frequent; the young boy that begs you for change could end up killing you; and sleep, or even a few hours off for rest and relaxation, is difficult. Most of the story feels like a dream, told with flashbacks and short bursts of action, and readers will sympathize with Edington’s precarious situation. The narrative never feels stable; it veers in multiple directions as people are introduced and then disappear without much explanation. While this makes the story somewhat challenging to follow, readers can only imagine that soldiers in today’s modern wars must feel somewhat similar—confused and scatterbrained. Yet Edington remains a constant, and his voice holds the chapters together despite their dissonance. He, too, is struck by how strange his situation is, and he wonders whether his emotional reactions are appropriate, as when Edington sees a market bombed, resulting in horrifying deaths: “Thoughts of how many innocent people had just been killed hung heavy on his mind. When his team drove through the market moments ago, hundreds of people stood crowding together in the square. However, part of him was slapping high-fives to himself for just surviving the attack.”
While the storytelling can be confusing at times, this adventure offers a realistic, brutal look at the tumultuous war in Iraq.Pub Date: April 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-1481736374
Page Count: 246
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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