This gritty novel about the pain others can inflict provides an unexpected sense of hope.
A wry teacher creates controlled chaos in her high school classroom in this tragicomic novel set in Texas.
Ellie Warden is a perfectly named character. As a teacher in a high school behavior-modification unit, her responsibilities lean more toward prison guard than educator. Ellie’s students in the New Pathways unit (or, as she has dubbed them, the Narcissistic Praise-Junkies) are a group of troubled kids with learning and behavioral problems, including OCD and Asperger’s syndrome. Ellie is full of patience and tough love. She copes with the stresses of her job with a hearty dose of black humor: She privately nicknames the kids based on their disorders (Becca, who suffers from OCD, is The Count; Trevor, who has Tourette’s syndrome, is Twitch) and talks about their various disabilities with a faux insensitivity that masks her compassion. But in many ways, Ellie is just as much of a misfit as her students. She’s a single, 32-year-old virgin who still lives at home with her cat and her religious mother, who raised Ellie to be mistrustful of relationships and marriage. Her monotonous life changes instantly when a horrific school shooting involves one of her students—an event that leaves Ellie shattered, although it pushes her toward an unlikely love interest, Dr. Peter Harmon. Peter, the uncle of one of Ellie’s students, is a smart, successful veterinarian—and he has Asperger’s syndrome. It’s a joy to watch their relationship blossom in the aftermath of the shooting and in spite of the complications associated with his condition. Bennett beautifully portrays Ellie’s quick wit, sharp sense of humor and deep vulnerability, and she provides an exquisitely rendered look at living with Asperger’s. Heavy themes suffuse the novel—sexuality, religion, prejudice and death—yet Bennett artfully provides moments of levity and humor. Her characters are realistic, heroic and flawed. Don’t let the tough talk fool you; Bennett’s book has heart.
This gritty novel about the pain others can inflict provides an unexpected sense of hope.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2012
ISBN: 978-1469924724
Page Count: 278
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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