An overlong and uninteresting first-person novel, bearing all the signs of a roman Ö clef, about the New York Orthodox Jewish community. Yakov Eisen, son of a well-known ultra-Orthodox rabbi in Borough Park, Brooklyn, is having a crisis of faith. Although raised to follow in his father's and grandfather's footsteps to study for ordination at the Mir Yeshiva and become a rabbi and scholar, Yakov wants to attend the less Orthodox Yeshiva University and learn secular philosophy as well as religious subjects. And as if this weren't enough to break his rigidly observant father's already weak heart, Yakov also falls in love with an amazingly unsuitable woman: Rebecca, whom Yakov meets as a teenager in an Orthodox resort—Dirty Dancing meets A Stranger Among Us—is not only the daughter of Rabbi Eisen's former best friend and his ex- fiancÇe. Worse, she's also studying to become a rabbi, an occupation forbidden to Orthodox Jewish women. But Yakov never gets to confront his father with Rebecca: Just as he is agonizing over whether or not to commit to her, and therefore to her religious choices, his father dies suddenly of a heart attack. Although unable to resolve his conflicts with his father personally, Rabbi Eisen's death is a turning point for Yakov: He finally realizes that Orthodoxy is important to him but that he can't practice it the way he would like in America. Only in Israel can Yakov find peace, happiness, and a new beginning. By the close, Yakov is a loving husband and father, an eminent scholar in the field of medical ethics, and unbearably smug. In fact, throughout his story, Yakov is self-righteous—even during those times he claims to be filled with doubts and misgivings. Readers in the know may want to look at Kane's detailed portraits of Jewish leaders in New York; otherwise, there is little to recommend in this puerile debut.
Pub Date: April 10, 1995
ISBN: 0-312-11879-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
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
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