An often engaging story that will likely appeal to readers with an interest in genealogy, immigration history, or Jewish...
Cohen’s debut novel offers a fictionalized account of her immigrant grandfather and first-generation American grandmother as they struggle to grow up in New York City at the turn of the 20th century.
Isadore Goldshlager is a young, Romanian Jew who’s living in the town of Iasi at the outset of this story. The general anti-Semitic attitude of the Romanian government, as well as increasing violence against Jewish citizens, inspires him to get his parents’ permission to immigrate to America with a friend at the tender age of 15. Across the ocean in New York City, Gussie Brotman, the American-born daughter of Polish immigrants, is struggling to deal with the recent death of her father and the increasing demands on her time by her single mother, who needs help raising Gussie’s younger siblings. The narrative alternates between these two main characters as they steadily age, recounting the immigration challenges they faced, their encounters with bigotry, and their difficulties meeting family expectations and achieving the American dream. It’s easy to sympathize with the hardworking Isadore, who feels stuck without a trade, and who’s less attractive and successful than his younger brother. Gussie, too, is relatable as a young woman who’s cut off from school and peers, stuck babysitting her younger brother, and fantasizing while reading books that she borrows from the library. Although this fictional story draws upon the author’s family history, it’s not so sentimental that strangers will find it inaccessible. Indeed, anyone whose family has experienced the hardships of immigration and assimilation will appreciate the book’s message. In straightforward, matter-of-fact prose, Cohen portrays her characters’ foibles as well as their virtues. There are some mentions of unexplained Jewish customs and traditions, and some readers may need to do research to fully understand them. Overall, though, this book is appropriate for readers in their early teens and older.
An often engaging story that will likely appeal to readers with an interest in genealogy, immigration history, or Jewish history.Pub Date: Dec. 20, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5411-7036-0
Page Count: 232
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2017
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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