Hopeful but not saccharine, this novel offers a deeply sympathetic view of recovery from grief.
Caught stealing supplies from her workplace, a bereaved woman is given the choice to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings or lose her job.
It’s been less than a year since tragedy struck Lucy Peterman: A car accident killed her husband and led to the miscarriage of what would have been her first child. She’s been soldiering on in her job as a reconstructive surgeon for women who have lost breasts to cancer. On the outside, she seems to be doing well; yet she can’t stop pilfering medical supplies and lifting small items from the grocery store. Lucy doesn’t understand it herself, as she explains to the hospital administrator who confronts her: “I don’t even know I’m taking it. I mean, I know I’m taking it, but it’s like I’m watching someone else and I can’t get her to stop.” To keep her job, Lucy must attend AA meetings, the best free choice for addressing compulsive behavior in her small town. She also follows instructions to get counseling, although “she found therapists to be overly personal people prone to making generalizations and wearing clogs.” Deeply skeptical—in denial, some would say—Lucy nevertheless makes connections in the group, especially after she adopts a stray dog. Slowly, Lucy comes to terms with her past and her new future. Garvin (On Maggie’s Watch, 2010) is insightful about grief and the pervasiveness of denial. Those familiar with 12-step programs will recognize the brand of tough love depicted here. With humor and compassion, Garvin shows how recovery depends on honesty—often with other people who share an addiction, whether to booze, drugs or shoplifting—and on helping others, whether stray dogs or stray people. Lucy’s current problems are well-accounted for; one character, a troubled teenager, is an excellent foil for Lucy to re-examine the privileges she has enjoyed and overlooked. Even minor characters are brought to life, such as the malaprop-prone supermarket clerk who has a crush on Lucy (and is given a respectful outcome).
Hopeful but not saccharine, this novel offers a deeply sympathetic view of recovery from grief.Pub Date: June 3, 2014
ISBN: 978-0425269251
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Berkley Trade
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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