A well-told coming-of-ager: hardly groundbreaking, but sweet enough to jerk a few tears by end.
Tender story of a girl growing up motherless in small-town Virginia, by the author of, most recently, Entering Normal (2001), etc.
Tallie begins her story by remembering the night her mother finally returned after a six-month jaunt in Hollywood searching for stardom. Dinah Mae, even in her late 30s, was the town beauty, probably the prettiest woman in the whole county. A virtual twin of Natalie Wood, Dinah Mae knew everything there was to know about the dead actress, and she fed Tallie stories of glamour and determination. But when she came back from Hollywood, Tallie’s mama just didn’t seem the same, and it wasn’t just her failure to have landed a movie role. It’s soon obvious that Mama has cancer, though for a 12-year-old, a dying mother seems an impossible thing. By the time Tallie is 16 (when the story takes place), her sweet father is drowning his sorrow in drink, she’s working the summer at the Klip-N-Kurl, where she diligently writes down all the female wisdom she’s privy to and plans on going to Hollywood to fulfill her mother’s dream. When Glamour Day comes to the salon (a company of “trained professionals” offer makeovers and glamour pics), Tallie sees it as her escape: all she needs is that eight-by-ten glossy to land herself a movie deal. The story follows Tallie’s memories of the past—good times with Mama, then the heartache of watching her die—with her current life in Eden, including the various oddballs at the salon, the witch woman who lives in the woods, and the growing attraction Tallie has for Spy Reynolds, the town’s rich boy who has a troubled past of his own. Along the way, Tallie discovers that her mama had quite a few secrets, and only a trip to Hollywood (and finding who lives at a certain address) will answer the questions Tallie now has.
A well-told coming-of-ager: hardly groundbreaking, but sweet enough to jerk a few tears by end.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-44574-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2002
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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