A stimulating philosophical work that’s short on storytelling.
Hale’s debut novel presents the story of a woman who awakes from a coma with a message from God.
Leah Warner survived a car crash but is now in a coma from which she isn’t expected to awake. Somehow, she does; also, the broken bones and extensive skin lacerations have begun to heal at an extraordinary rate. A medical miracle? Leah believes it’s a divine one. In her coma, she saw God, who has sent her back to Earth with a message: “It is a message of love. God loves us and wants us to love each other in the same way. God wants us to embrace humility and selflessness instead of acquisition and achievement.” The novel then uses the familiar device of framing a philosophical discussion as fiction: in this case, the question is over what sort of evidence the public will accept as proof of the existence of God. What follows is an account of Leah’s attempts to deliver her message, drawing the adoration of some and the ire of others. Her story is intercut with lectures by professor Stephen Bradshaw—“widely considered one of the four or five most influential living philosophers.” His lectures often revolve around the ubiquity of inductive reasoning in life: “Just because our senses have been accurate before does not guarantee that they are accurate now.” The ideas are interesting, deliberative, and intellectually honest, and readers curious about the limitations of scientific knowledge and atheism should enjoy this book in the same way one enjoys a good staged discussion series. Fans of fiction, however, won’t find much beyond philosophy; there’s little plot. Hale is a great craftsman of dialogue; he is less adept at scenes, where movement is often blocky and reminiscent of stage direction. Most disappointingly, the characters are not quite characters so much as they are stand-ins for various intellectual perspectives, and as such, the reader’s emotional investment never becomes very large.
A stimulating philosophical work that’s short on storytelling.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-1506188911
Page Count: 264
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2015
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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