Nostalgia and cultural narcissism with a mostly painted-by-numbers feel.
Simplistic and memoir-like historical about two girls coming of age as their scientist father works to help make WWII come out all right.
Childhood here means you ask lots of awkward rhetorical questions in interior monologue and learn about the adult world through the clunky devices of coincidence and eavesdropping. The Lindsten family moves to Washington, DC, shortly after Pearl Harbor so that protagonist Joey’s father can work with Robert Oppenheimer on the bomb. But does Poppy really need to stay out until midnight every night to beat a Hitler who might actually win this thing? The girls simply can’t understand the war except in terms of the mean rats in the house and the forced move from Cambridge. And what’s with Poppy? Is the only nice thing he can say to Mum that he likes her stew? Still, things look better when Oppenheimer contacts Joey’s father himself—Oppie calls Poppy (really)—and Joey has time to memorize bits of speeches of Roosevelt and Churchill and to worry about getting a bra from the five-and-ten. Details are largely recognizable: there are Spam dinners and Lucky Strikes ads, while everyone wants to know what Mrs. Roosevelt is into now. Oppie calls Poppy for an emergency meeting at the British embassy, but it doesn’t ruin the Lindsten family Christmas or divert Mum’s growing suspicions about Poppy. The years fly by: Poppy takes a job somewhere secret (read: Los Alamos), but the story’s main concern is whether Joey will win the Four Freedoms Essay Contest. And the questions Joey continually asks herself are the ones that pester us: “What did it mean that Mum seemed happier with Poppy gone and that they were having a good Christmas without him?”
Nostalgia and cultural narcissism with a mostly painted-by-numbers feel.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2002
ISBN: 1-880284-59-6
Page Count: 292
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Refreshingly filled with love rather than sex, this coming-of-age novel examines the human cost of political repression.
A star-crossed romance captures the turmoil of pre-revolutionary Iran in Seraji’s debut.
From the rooftops of Tehran in 1973, life looks pretty good to 17-year-old Pasha Shahed and his friend Ahmed. They’re bright, funny and good-looking; they’re going to graduate from high school in a year; and they’re in love with a couple of the neighborhood girls. But all is not idyllic. At first the girls scarcely know the boys are alive, and one of them, Zari, is engaged to Doctor—not actually a doctor but an exceptionally gifted and politically committed young Iranian. In this neighborhood, the Shah is a subject of contempt rather than veneration, and residents fear SAVAK, the state’s secret police force, which operates without any restraint. Pasha, the novel’s narrator and prime dreamer, focuses on two key periods in his life: the summer and fall of 1973, when his life is going rather well, and the winter of 1974, when he’s incarcerated in a grim psychiatric hospital. Among the traumatic events he relates are the sudden arrest, imprisonment and presumed execution of Doctor. Pasha feels terrible because he fears he might have inadvertently been responsible for SAVAK having located Doctor’s hiding place; he also feels guilty because he’s always been in love with Zari. She makes a dramatic political statement, setting herself on fire and sending Pasha into emotional turmoil. He is both devastated and further worried when the irrepressible Ahmed also seems to come under suspicion for political activity. Pasha turns bitterly against religion, raising the question of God’s existence in a world in which the bad guys seem so obviously in the ascendant. Yet the badly scarred Zari assures him, “Things will change—they always do.”
Refreshingly filled with love rather than sex, this coming-of-age novel examines the human cost of political repression.Pub Date: May 5, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-451-22681-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: NAL/Berkley
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2009
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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