Often pedestrian, sometimes engrossing, much like Facebook itself.
Strong uses the brave new world of social networking to explore the timeless themes of love, betrayal, jealousy and friendship.
Chloe is a successful Manhattan professional in her early 30s. By day, she works her dream job as a film critic for a major entertainment magazine; by night, she hangs out with a glamorous gossip-columnist roommate and supportive fashion-designer best friend. Her social and professional lives are in order, but her romantic life is a consistent disappointment—until a hesitant foray into Facebook leads to an unexpected reunion. A few states away, Morgan has settled into a stable if mundane routine. She takes care of her two young children, keeps house and fills her downtime with Facebook. It’s an activity that allows her to express herself outside the confines of her home, but also allows her to obsessively follow her husband’s Facebook activities—specifically his interactions with a certain ex-girlfriend. It is unfortunate that Morgan’s ability to keep tabs on her husband far outweighs her ability to say anything particularly noteworthy on the public site. Strong dutifully records Morgan’s day-to-day postings, but it’s unclear whether she’s making a comment on modern oversharing or simply filling her novel with the type of minutiae that already clogs the Internet. Brynn is also a dedicated wife and mother, but at 40, with her two children well into their teens and her husband consumed by work, she feels increasingly isolated. Once again, Facebook becomes a source of both tension and relief. Brynn escapes her dissatisfaction by writing to a high school boyfriend, but when the relationship goes beyond the virtual, Brynn is caught between following her desires and protecting her family. What do these women have in common? A lot more than we think, as it turns out, but most importantly, they all use Facebook to express their most significant emotions. One character even proposes marriage through a “status update.” But Strong doesn’t sufficiently examine the total lack of separation between virtual and actual communication in her characters’ lives. The reader may wish that these women would get off the computer and talk to one another.
Often pedestrian, sometimes engrossing, much like Facebook itself.Pub Date: March 23, 2011
ISBN: 978-1257092406
Page Count: 339
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 10, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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