Tired and predictable; there’s not a plot turn here that we haven’t seen before. Jimmy Choo will be happy, though.
By-the-numbers political soap opera by former campaign staffer (Kerry/Edwards, Obama/Biden, Cuomo, Clinton) and debut novelist Siegel.
The fifth directive on a campaign staffer’s list of to-do’s and not-to-do’s is this: Pack light. “Wrinkle-free suits could look totally different with a new shirt, and a black shift dress worked for everything.” So glosses young Olivia Greenley, stealing a march from The Accidental Tourist, delighted nonetheless to discover that the campaign bus on which she’s signed up has anchored next to a Super Target. On that list, at least if the staffer is a sensible young woman, of course, is this admonition: Don’t sleep with the boss. Well, Olivia’s better at observing the rules of packing than those of dallying. After all, with a dreamboat governor now putting it all on the line to run for president, what’s to keep a girl from doing a Monica? Well, he’s not just a dreamboat. Shoe-conscious Olivia, whose heart melts at the sight of Jimmy Choos, notes first thing that the candidate’s “gorgeous wife” hits the deck wearing Christian Louboutins. The shoe consciousness will doubtless speak to Candace Bushnell fans, but that’s as close as we get to smart thinking about policy in these pages. That gorgeous wife turns out to be a tough cookie of the sort Sigourney Weaver plays with such skill. A typical burst from her runs along the lines of, “Now, why in the fuck would I stand outside a Target all day? Do any of you know how fucking cold it is in Iowa in October?!” The candidate’s a weasel, naturally, which may send readers searching for clues as to who he might be modeled after. Someone sexy, to be sure, for Siegel serves up some light porn to speak to his skills: “His tongue moved hers back and forth. It was softer than she remembered. And it tasted of the pretzels from the ballroom tables, mixed with the spearmint Tic Tacs he was constantly popping.” Better that than stale cigars, one supposes....
Tired and predictable; there’s not a plot turn here that we haven’t seen before. Jimmy Choo will be happy, though.Pub Date: July 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-60286-164-0
Page Count: 322
Publisher: Weinstein Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2012
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
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