This debut novella and religious self-help book aims to help readers rediscover themselves through the stories of two families and the teachings of the Bible.
Rudecindo uses her skills as a storyteller to help guide readers to self-discovery and happiness. She details the trajectories of two fictional families, each hindered by societal prejudices. Laura comes from a wealthy clan; her father is a successful, powerful, and well-respected figure in their rural community. When he decides that she and her siblings need a formal education in order to excel, they move to the city. Although they’re initially excited, they’re soon burdened by their new community’s racism and classism. People mock their dark skin and say they have “ugly” noses, and the family members internalize deep feelings of hurt, thus becoming hardened, negative, and unhappy; Rudecindo explains that they each “had their own ‘crosses’ to bear.” Another family is wealthy and lives in the city. Some locals ridicule their disfigured son, Hector, who becomes the neighborhood bully after he’s alienated by the other children. He bullies Laura and her family, calling them “hillbillies.” Later, Laura moves to America, finds hope in the Christian faith, and goes back to her homeland to spread the Word of the Bible. Although she’s wary of how her family and community will react, she’s driven by her newfound religious inspiration. Rudecindo says that as readers follow the stories of her characters, “they will relate to one of them and learn from their journey the true path to happiness in spite of the circumstances in the world around them.” Although her book will likely resonate more deeply with a Christian audience, as its message is driven by biblical teachings, any reader may appreciate this inspiring narrative of overcoming prejudice. Its uplifting prose addresses how to deal with problems such as identity crises, negative thoughts, internalized feelings of inferiority, and desperation in the face of perceived failure. At the end, Rudecindo offers a helpful interactive section in which readers may write out their reflections on the characters and compare their problems and healing processes to their own. A useful, quick read, recommended for those who want to connect more deeply with religious lessons and apply helpful prayer techniques to their own lives.
Pub Date: Nov. 26, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4984-1815-7
Page Count: 106
Publisher: Xulon Press
Review Posted Online: July 8, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
