by Betool Khedairi & translated by Muhayman Jamil ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 16, 2001
Disappointing.
A young Middle Eastern woman’s embattled—and elongated—coming of age, in a gracefully written if rather tepid first novel set in rural Iraq, Baghdad, and England.
An unnamed narrator relates in a curiously affectless voice the details of her childhood years, spent bonding furtively with a neighboring farm girl and her sprawling family, over the objections of the narrator’s Iraqi father, a well-to-do “trader in food flavorings,” and especially her English mother, who’s determined to impose upon her daughter the standards of Western culture. The early pages present a series of contrasts between the narrator’s incompatible parents, who disagree—often violently—over personal hygiene, diet, a woman’s right to work outside the home, and numerous other issues. A partial escape from their bickering is provided by ballet lessons; particularly by the florid presence of the narrator’s demonstrative instructor “Madame” and several members of the latter’s circle, including a sculptor named Saleem, ten years older than the narrator, who romances her efficiently, but is soon spirited away to fight in the border war with Iran. The family’s move to the busy metropolis of Baghdad is followed by the father’s untimely death, then her mother’s ordeal with breast cancer, for which she seeks treatment in England. The story ends there, some 30 years after its beginning, with the narrator twice bereaved, now employed as a translator, and of necessity estranged from both the man she loves and her homeland. Individual particulars aside, this is an awfully familiar tale, which often feels summarized rather than told, and is almost devoid of emotional resonance until its very late scenes, when the sufferings of the narrator’s mother are made graphic, painful, and genuinely involving. And matters aren’t helped by a leaden translation that frequently makes Khedairi’s dialogue ring false (“ . . . this is the twentieth century; the weapons of modern warfare have reached their peak in causing death!,” etc.).
Disappointing.Pub Date: July 16, 2001
ISBN: 0-375-42096-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2001
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by Betool Khedairi & translated by Muhayman Jamil
by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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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