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THE ITCH

Name: THE ITCH
Author: Benilde Little
ISBN: 0-684-83834-6

by Benilde Little ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 1998

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Little’s second is an improvement over her debut (Good Hair, 1996), although it’s still a watered-down Terry McMillan. Her subject matter—the lives and loves of upper-middle-class black professionals—has remained the same, but she’s tightened her focus, providing some real insight into the lives of her two very different heroines. Abra Lewis Dixon is happy with her life, or so she tells herself. Her husband Cullen is a high-roller in the world of high finance, and the fact that he’s always “out making deals” just seems to Abra like a cross she has to bear. Natasha Coleman, her best friend and business partner, is as involved as Abra in their “Is My Wig On Straight Productions” company. While Abra and Cullen grow farther apart in Manhattan and environs, however, Natasha’s getting hot and heavy in L.A. with the wildly handsome, supersuccessful Miles. And when Abra finds out about Cullen’s dalliances with a salesgirl/model, she musters up the courage to set out for California too, but not before she runs a check on Miles (a girl’s got to look out for her sisters) and learns that he’s a notorious womanizer. Natasha refuses to be warned, however, and when Miles proposes marriage she accepts immediately. Meanwhile, Abra is increasingly attracted to a director by the name of Griffin. Griffin’s problem is that he’s white; and Abra, left damaged by Cullen’s betrayal, is determined to find a man with common decency and a common culture. And so there are no happy endings here, at least of the traditional sort. Abra and Natasha will be grateful in the long run, we’re led to assume, for the dissolution of these relationships, but in present-time, the finale is downbeat and rather flat. Little has no trouble, though, with characterization, and both Abra and Natasha are likable and real; further, the women’s shared realization that they don—t need men—black or white—to define themselves rings true.

Pub Date: June 1, 1998

ISBN: 0-684-83834-6

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1998

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
WHO DOES SHE THINK SHE IS?
by Benilde Little

- BOOK REVIEW
ACTING OUT
by Benilde Little

- BOOK REVIEW
GOOD HAIR
by Benilde Little

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.

Pub Date: May 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-345-45073-6

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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THE ALCHEMIST

by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

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Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.

The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.