A genial novel that will appeal to those who share the protagonist’s musical interests.
A New York hipster falls victim to a unique case of identity theft in this High Fidelity–esque debut novel.
David Gould is a Brooklyn freelance writer in his twenties, but he’s in the midst of what feels a lot like a midlife crisis. His girlfriend, Amy, has left to take a job at The Hague, and he’s dangerously close to missing the deadline on a book he’s contracted to write about online journals. “Diaries didn’t come with locks on them anymore,” David observes, “they came with stadium seating.” David is seduced by one diary in particular, written by recent New York transplant Cath Kennedy, aka Miss Misery. Her chronicle of Manhattan club-hopping prompts David to invent his own impossibly hip online persona. David’s diary is promptly hacked into, and the hacker, who happens to look like David, soon begins dating Cath. Though the absurd plot, which also involves a 17-year-old stalker on David’s buddy list, threatens at every turn to let this story flounder as a weightless coming-of-age comedy, David is an appealingly earnest hero. Greenwald includes copies music references, and readers who have a passing familiarity with college-radio luminaries might enjoy the vibe here more than others; it helps if you, like David, think it’s a little odd to put LCD Soundsystem and Jandek on the same mix CD. But all readers will groan at Greenwald’s use of minority characters as opportunities for clichéd bits of comic relief, and for all of David’s adventures—in nightclubs, at parties—his concluding revelations ultimately feel shallow.
A genial novel that will appeal to those who share the protagonist’s musical interests.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2006
ISBN: 1-4169-0240-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 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
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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