A feel-good book that effectively mixes gross-out humor, a bit of monster-y horror, and sweet affection.
In this illustrated children’s book, a monster who loves giving hugs figures out how to make friends.
All the monsters in Ghastly Gigapolis hide when the Squeezor comes to town for supplies. Why? Because he “loves to give hugs. Great, big, wrap-his-arms-around-you-twice, squeezy hugs”—and although that doesn’t sound so bad, he also “looks like he wants to eat you up!” Besides those long, long arms, he’s got a mouth full of fangs, huge horns, “squashy” feet with greasy toenails, and sharp claws. But the Squeezor doesn’t actually want to eat anyone; he can’t help how he looks, and he’d like to be friends. He reads some self-help books, including 7 Habits of Highly Disgruntled Monsters, but they don’t give the creature any insight into himself. A portrait of his “Great-Grandmother Squeezums” inspires him to consider others, instead. In town, the Squeezor finds ways to help his fellow monsters by using his long arms. He gets a job and even discovers that his special hug cheers up the local Grumpypuss. Word gets out, and soon the Squeezor is welcomed by everyone; now, they all come out for a hug when he comes to town. Benishek (Dr. Guinea Pig George, 2017, etc.) offers a funny and sweet book that’s good for reading aloud. It features lively prose and references that will appeal to adults as well as kids, as when the Squeezor watches the TV show Game of Bones. It doesn’t quite make sense that a town full of monsters—many of whom also look ready to “eat you up”—would be so put off by the Squeezor, but that’s a small matter. Debut illustrator Fiss’ illustrations have plenty of variety and expressiveness without overdoing the monsters’ scariness; clever details expand the storytelling, such as the darling, if fanged, bunny slippers on vampire Bitey McBitesalot. The book is also available in a special edition for dyslexic readers, printed in an easy-to-read font (not reviewed).
A feel-good book that effectively mixes gross-out humor, a bit of monster-y horror, and sweet affection.Pub Date: Aug. 14, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-387-02173-4
Page Count: 42
Publisher: MacLaren-Cochrane Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 21, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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