A humorous and thought-provoking tale about searching for the ever elusive brass ring.
A young woman hustles to climb the corporate ladder in this darkly comedic, deeply insightful workplace drama.
Halley Faust will do anything to get promoted to “Level 2” at Findlay Global Manufacturing, Inc. The new job title would result in her relocation to Europe and her escape from the sleepy Midwestern town where she has lived all her life. Longing for these new possibilities, Halley makes a cutthroat decision, betraying an old friend but securing the higher position. With barely a backward glance, she hops on a plane to France, where she and a small team of Findlay employees will spend a year preparing to launch the company’s newest product, the mysterious Tantalus. Unfortunately, even as a Level 2, Halley is the most junior member of the team in Europe, and she quickly finds herself falling into the roles of gopher and scapegoat, much like she had been back in the home office in Ohio. With France failing to live up to her expectations, Halley wonders whether Level 2 is all it was cracked up to be. In fact, she quickly determines that she should invest all her energy in reaching Level 3 status instead. Unfortunately, the co-workers with whom she travels are as conniving and manipulative as she, and she will have to surmount many professional and interpersonal challenges if she hopes to be considered for another promotion. As she plans the launch of this product that she has never actually seen and can’t quite explain, Halley also examines her relationships with her co-workers and begins to question her decisions. Through a fast-paced and accessible prose that is full of both intuitive observations and slapstick, cringeworthy moments, Terwilliger deftly tackles issues ranging from workplace romances and corporate ethics to self-esteem and personal ambition.
A humorous and thought-provoking tale about searching for the ever elusive brass ring.Pub Date: Aug. 28, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-944995-59-1
Page Count: 338
Publisher: Amberjack Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2018
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
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.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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