Anonymously written by a Manhattan prep-school teacher, this debut aspires to social satire, but much of the humor is...
A conspiracy to get a rich man’s daughter into Princeton ensnares an idealistic prep-school teacher.
A few weeks before summer is not the easiest time to keep the students of Academy X focused on the book in front of them, which, for John Spencer’s senior lit class, is Emma. Half his time is spent reminding students to refer to the titular character as Jane Austen dubbed her and not as Hollywood cast her (Gwyneth Paltrow). The rest is spent quelling class wars between the wealthy and the ultra-wealthy and more primitive fights between brains and brawn. Par for the course, John thinks, for end-of-school-year antics . . . until his most comely, most scantily clad student, Caitlyn Brie, approaches him for help. She was accepted at Wellesley, but only wait-listed at Princeton. Wellesley won’t do. Pressure to write Caitlyn a second, stronger letter of recommendation rises when the head of the College Counseling Department reminds John that Caitlyn’s father is a big Academy X donor. Two tickets for floor seats at a Knicks playoff game appear anonymously in John’s mailbox, and since he is trying to woo Amy, a new assistant librarian, he yields. Shortly thereafter, everything unhinges: Amy may not be as innocent as John imagines . . . and neither is Caitlyn: She committed plagiarism. Determined to expose the crime, John finds himself charged with sexual harassment and bribery. He enlists a motley group to help him clear his name: a handful of loyal students, an art teacher who won’t admit her boyfriend is gay and a science teacher who thinks evolutionary biology will help him find a date. Can this band take on the trustees’ bank accounts, their lawyers and the shamelessly competitive English faculty, who all covet the post of department head, which rightly belongs to John?
Anonymously written by a Manhattan prep-school teacher, this debut aspires to social satire, but much of the humor is canned. Stick with the original, Lucky Jim.Pub Date: June 13, 2006
ISBN: 1-59691-177-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2006
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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