A boisterous, persistently fun adventure story.
A debut fantasy about an Illinois grad student who goes to various places that share more than a few similarities with familiar movies and TV shows.
George Preston is a 27-year-old working on his dissertation in the year 2000. One day, he opens his bathroom door and sees a rainy city outside at street level, despite the fact that his apartment is on the third floor. He soon figures out that the rainy day is in the future, but then, after a short while, someone sticks a gun in his face—and George suddenly wakes up somewhere else. In this new place, he meets Dirk Hendricks and J.P. Ryder, characters from the 1990s sci-fi television series Hidden Agendas, who demand to know what he remembers. Soon, George is dodging bullets, and then he wakes up in yet another universe, stealing treasure with Pistol Kramer, a thrill-seeking adventurer from the movies. George moves from universe to universe in different ways, but wherever he goes, he keeps seeing a familiar man, who may be the only one who can explain what’s happening to him. But the mysterious man isn’t exactly forthcoming; sometimes he’s sympathetic to George’s plight, and other times he’s outright antagonistic. George has no option but to traverse assorted universes and hope for a return to his perfectly normal life. This witty story enjoys parodying recognizable films and TV shows; Hidden Agendas, for example, is an obvious play on The X-Files, complete with a “Gum-chewing Man,” and George later finds himself in a role akin to a certain popular, fictional MI6 agent. Deason layers on smart satire, as well, largely through his protagonist’s self-awareness; for example, George recognizes the innate racism of the Indiana Jones–esque Kramer. The myriad worlds are colorful, with each appearing to George as they would onscreen, such as a 1950s sitcom that’s all in black and white. The likable protagonist, meanwhile, ultimately sees the people he meets as more than just characters, sparking an intriguing question: could one of them cross into George’s world? However, the ending, while emphatically resolving the plot, is familiar from other stories and may be too predictable for some readers.
A boisterous, persistently fun adventure story.Pub Date: July 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5232-2714-3
Page Count: 136
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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 2024 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.
bookshelf
