A less-polished A Town Like Alice that—apart from its themes of affirmation and adversity overcome in wartime—describes then- nascent Burmese nationalism, with a cameo appearance of the activist father of Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize- winner. Basing her novel on a true story, and setting it in Burma between 1939-41, Vroman (Sons of Thunder, 1981) writes of beautiful Charity, who comes to Burma as the wife of missionary doctor Barrat Phillips. Obsessed with his work of ministering to the souls and bodies of the local Burmese, Barrat neglects Charity, who finds the friendship of the Burmese, both Christian and Buddhist, an increasing solace. One such friendship—with Hla, a former nurse at the mission who moves to Rangoon—brings Charity into contact with nationalists, some of whom are prepared to embrace fascism rather than endure British rule. Charity, though unhappy in her marriage, begins to adjust to, and even love, this very different world; but when the Japanese advance into Burma, she is forced to flee with her two sons and three-week-old baby. With an ill-prepared group of missionaries, diplomats' wives, and other expatriates, Charity begins the hazardous journey over the mountains to safety in India. Along the way, she's helped by the mysterious but quietly compelling Ba Than, nominally a servant but for whom Charity feels an increasing attraction and affinity. Food runs out, the children sicken, but they make it. Ba Than has a surprise for them; and though Charity will never see him again, he has shown her that her destiny lies in Burma, where the people ``were winners. Whatever they had suffered.'' The language is gushy, clichÇs abound, and the tone is woefully old-fashioned. But it's the descriptions of Burma, the Burmese people, and Charity herself that really give the book some heft and vitality.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-939995-09-3
Page Count: 282
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1991
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.
A promise to his best friend leads an Army serviceman to a family in need and a chance at true love in this novel.
Beckett Gentry is surprised when his Army buddy Ryan MacKenzie gives him a letter from Ryan’s sister, Ella. Abandoned by his mother, Beckett grew up in a series of foster homes. He is wary of attachments until he reads Ella’s letter. A single mother, Ella lives with her twins, Maisie and Colt, at Solitude, the resort she operates in Telluride, Colorado. They begin a correspondence, although Beckett can only identify himself by his call sign, Chaos. After Ryan’s death during a mission, Beckett travels to Telluride as his friend had requested. He bonds with the twins while falling deeply in love with Ella. Reluctant to reveal details of Ryan’s death and risk causing her pain, Beckett declines to disclose to Ella that he is Chaos. Maisie needs treatment for neuroblastoma, and Beckett formally adopts the twins as a sign of his commitment to support Ella and her children. He and Ella pursue a romance, but when an insurance investigator questions the adoption, Beckett is faced with revealing the truth about the letters and Ryan’s death, risking losing the family he loves. Yarros’ (Wilder, 2016, etc.) novel is a deeply felt and emotionally nuanced contemporary romance bolstered by well-drawn characters and strong, confident storytelling. Beckett and Ella are sympathetic protagonists whose past experiences leave them cautious when it comes to love. Beckett never knew the security of a stable home life. Ella impulsively married her high school boyfriend, but the marriage ended when he discovered she was pregnant. The author is especially adept at developing the characters through subtle but significant details, like Beckett’s aversion to swearing. Beckett and Ella’s romance unfolds slowly in chapters that alternate between their first-person viewpoints. The letters they exchanged are pivotal to their connection, and almost every chapter opens with one. Yarros’ writing is crisp and sharp, with passages that are poetic without being florid. For example, in a letter to Beckett, Ella writes of motherhood: “But I’m not the center of their universe. I’m more like their gravity.” While the love story is the book’s focus, the subplot involving Maisie’s illness is equally well-developed, and the link between Beckett and the twins is heartfelt and sincere.
A thoughtful and pensive tale with intelligent characters and a satisfying romance.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-64063-533-3
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Entangled: Amara
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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