Gwen’s inferiority complex sets up a barrier to reader sympathy, in a tale at times delightfully intractable, though by end...
Cantankerous narrative of a girl in the logging country of the Pacific Northwest who chooses a tough way to deal with the death of her mother.
Gwen’s mother Althea was Columbia’s hairdresser, not well respected after setting aside her musical talent many years before for love of a transient Mexican, Gustavo Perez, who got her pregnant, then left town. His companion, Edgar Fuentes, however, stayed on, and Gwen, the product of her mother’s hapless love match, now 16, has had an affair with the older Edgar and finds herself pregnant—several months after her mother has died in a driving accident. Gwen works at a stable owned by the richest lady in town, Miz Hundy, and she now lives with Miz Hundy’s sister, the kindly and unmarried Mrs. Parker, who has also taken under her wing the recuperating “Leukemia Girl,” Lila Abernathy, in remission after chemotherapy in Portland and now trying to finish high-school in Columbia. Gwen and Lila dislike each other immensely: no-nonsense Gwen perceives Lila as a prettified social climber, while Lila is concerned only with avoiding germs and resurrecting her ballet career. The story is really the portrayal of an attempt at reconciliation—between these two young women of different social classes brought together through hardship, and between the girls and their town’s recognition of their rich individual talents. Second-novelist Koenig (Thumbelina, 1999) writes in Gwen’s hardy vernacular: the teenager is keenly aware of gossip about her mother and her, and is inured to it, yet she lacks the self-confidence to admit any emotional helpers, like the life-by-hard-knocks Miz Hundy; or the hunk at the hatchery, Dennis Bly, who fancies Gwen’s freewheeling ways; or even the dejected Edgar Fuentes, who truly loves her.
Gwen’s inferiority complex sets up a barrier to reader sympathy, in a tale at times delightfully intractable, though by end a hard nut to crack.Pub Date: May 1, 2005
ISBN: 1-56947-391-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Soho
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2005
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
