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Tall Trees

Name: Tall Trees
Author: Andrea Bouvier
ISBN: 978-0985663902

A STORY OF TRIUMPH

by Andrea Bouvier Mark Richard Clements ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 8, 2012

An engaging, inspiring rise above a traumatic childhood, but it’s dampened by a narrative that’s more sketch than story.

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In Bouvier and Clements’ debut novel, Thomas Paul Stanton’s upbringing is a Dickensian nightmare.

Thomas Paul suffers physical and verbal abuse from his absentee father, his mother is mentally ill, and he agonizes over self-loathing spurred by his family life and the ever-growing revelation that he seems different from his peers. Eventually, he realizes he’s gay. He seeks to find answers to his anguish through God and/or religion, but his spiritual yearning is met with conflict, confusion and, ultimately, abuse at the hands of a priest. Similarly, as he seeks acceptance from his family, his need seems all too often to be met with some form of abuse. Before he’s even 3 years old, Thomas Paul witnesses a confusing scene of naked boys “playing” beneath a makeshift tent; then suddenly, one of the boys tries to sexually abuse him—a traumatic incident that gives him recurring nightmares. As his mother’s mental condition deteriorates, Thomas Paul can no longer turn to her for comfort. Just as he begins to accept who he is, the teenage Thomas Paul meets a priest, whom he admires. The priest invites him to his home, where he sexually abuses him. Only years later, in intensive therapy, does Thomas Paul come to understand that he was sexually abused by the priest. Readers who have suffered any kind of abuse will surely identify with this novel, which reads very much like a memoir; thankfully, it has a positive resolution. While the book tells a powerful story, too often the authors tell rather than show. For instance, a good part of the novel is spent with Thomas Paul in a therapist’s office, where he relates traumatic events from his past. Therapy is a crucial part of Thomas Paul’s ultimate recovery, but presenting key parts of the story in this manner turns the book into more of an extended summary than a complete story. Furthermore, sloppy copy editing mistakes—missing quotation marks and paragraph indentations, for example—mar the presentation.

An engaging, inspiring rise above a traumatic childhood, but it’s dampened by a narrative that’s more sketch than story.

Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2012

ISBN: 978-0985663902

Page Count: 266

Publisher: Tall Trees LLC.

Review Posted Online: July 1, 2013

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- SEEN & HEARD
Salinger Focus of NYPL Exhibit

- SEEN & HEARD
NYC Mayoral Candidates Name Favorite Gotham Books

- APPRECIATIONS
Holden Caulfield: Forever Young

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JURASSIC PARK

by Michael Crichton ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 7, 1990

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Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.