WHO DOES SHE THINK SHE IS?

Name: WHO DOES SHE THINK SHE IS?
Author: Benilde Little
ISBN: 0-684-85482-1

by Benilde Little ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 3, 2005

In all, then, a multigenerational cast turns mediocre chick-lit into a refreshingly different kind of contemporary romance.

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Three women talk about love.

Young, beautiful, used to getting her way, Aisha Branch is planning a wedding as ostentatious as her engagement ring. Her daddy barely blinks when she picks out a $7,000 gown, and her fiancé—a seriously rich white boy—is able to offer her the choice of several family estates for the ceremony. Everything changes, though, when Aisha falls for an enigmatic older man. Little (Acting Out, 2003, etc.) brings out some sharp social commentary through the contrasts between newly affluent African-Americans, on the one hand, and Upper East Siders, on the other, who had ancestors on the Mayflower. But, unfortunately, her heroine is too status-conscious and materialistic to be appealing, and Aisha’s signs of character growth—when she finally does get married, she buys a dress off the rack—aren’t very convincing. Meanwhile, her mother, Camille, and her grandmother, Geneva, are much more engaging, and the story does considerably better for itself when they do the talking. Camille got pregnant at 19 and later spent her life doing what she could for others—both as a mother and as a social worker. Now, at middle-age, she rediscovers herself as a sexual being and forges a life-changing friendship with the mother of Aisha’s biological father. As for Geneva, although apparently the very model of “Negro respectability,” she surprised everyone—even herself—by falling in love with a jazz musician. She spent most of her marriage on the road with him, creating an all but unbridgeable distance between her and her children. By end, though, she’s overcome the disappointments and prejudices that made reconciliation with them impossible. It’s a rare novel that depicts older women as real people capable of change, which makes Little’s portrayal of Camille and Geneva as admirable as it is entertaining.

In all, then, a multigenerational cast turns mediocre chick-lit into a refreshingly different kind of contemporary romance.

Pub Date: May 3, 2005

ISBN: 0-684-85482-1

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Free Press

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2005

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
ACTING OUT
by Benilde Little

- BOOK REVIEW
THE ITCH
by Benilde Little

- BOOK REVIEW
GOOD HAIR
by Benilde Little

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.

Pub Date: July 11, 1960

ISBN: 0060935464

Page Count: 323

Publisher: Lippincott

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE LAND OF SWEET FOREVER
by Harper Lee ; edited by Casey Cep

- BOOK REVIEW
GO SET A WATCHMAN
by Harper Lee

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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.