A heartfelt, if uneven, meditation on survival.
A woman copes with her husband’s sudden illness and the return of her own cancer in this third series installment.
Hutcheson (Beauty Full, 2014, etc.) concludes her Cancer Chronicles series with a new set of struggles that befall Penney Divan and her devoted husband, Jack. Penney, who battled a rare form of breast cancer in the previous two entries in the series, now finds herself faced with the unthinkable. Jack, while visiting his ailing mother, suddenly suffers a brain aneurysm and must undergo rigorous physical and occupational therapy to help him regain his full physical and mental functions. Penney, with the help of her two children, Ginger and Michael, stubbornly advocates for Jack’s care as much as she did for her own. She has him moved to a long-term acute-care facility despite his doctors’ pessimism, and the family must adjust to his mental and emotional changes while he recovers. On top of all this, Penney is shocked when she finds out that her cancer has recurred. After so much struggle and strife, she must decide how to combat the disease again. Overall, Hutcheson certainly portrays the struggles of coping with cancer very vividly. In this book, Penney’s determined attempts to keep working as a high school principal and her feelings about her changing body definitely ring true. However, most of the other characters feel a little flat, as they often serve as mouthpieces for particular agendas rather than acting as fully formed, three-dimensional people. This is particularly true for the doctors whom Penney encounters; with one or two exceptions, they’re all rude and abrupt, dismissive of her opinions, and say things such as, “It is best to let the experts do their job” when she tries to speak up for herself. Although such portrayals may well be rooted in reality, the act of depicting every single medical practitioner this way causes them all to blend together and feel like cartoonish villains. That said, this book, though fictional, may ultimately work best as a primer or guide for readers going through experiences like Penney’s.
A heartfelt, if uneven, meditation on survival.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4917-8246-0
Page Count: 120
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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