Emotionally rather high-pitched, but an agreeable read.
A deft if unshaded celebration of the usual strong and beautiful woman taking on an abusive husband, famine, and political rebellion in the Ireland of the 1840s, where the people are dying while their British landlords sit idle.
Vivid historical detail gives the story of beautiful Gracelin O’Malley, who lives with father Patrick, disabled brother Sean, and grandmother Granna on a small farm, greater texture, but the cast, though sensitively drawn, stays hostage to the demands of the plot. Gracelin’s mother died in the accident that maimed Sean, and the family has never recovered from the loss, though Granna and Gracelin have tried to keep things going. But times are hard, the harvests are failing, the British keep increasing the rents, and those who can, leave. Gracelin, a loving daughter, doesn’t protest when her father arranges for her, at 16, to marry their wealthy British landlord Bram Donelly in exchange for canceling the family’s debts. Bram's been married twice before, with both wives dying in suspicious circumstances; Gracelin thinks she can cope, though Sean and longtime admirer, handsome Morgan McDonagh, are not so certain. The honeymoon is agreeable and Donelly House magnificent, but when Gracelin falls pregnant, Bram becomes abusive. The potato harvest has failed again, the people are starving, and he objects to Gracelin’s helping them. She gives birth to twins, but only a daughter survives, and, as Bram’s brutal behavior escalates she suspects that he may have fatally harmed his other wives. As famine deaths mount, Sean and Morgan plot rebellion against the British, and Gracelin defies Bram by feeding the needy. Enraged, he imprisons her, pregnant again, in the attic. This time, though, Gracelin is strong and able to fight back, even if it need be by murder.
Emotionally rather high-pitched, but an agreeable read.Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2001
ISBN: 0-451-20299-6
Page Count: 416
Publisher: NAL/Berkley
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
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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