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JACKIE BY JOSIE

Name: JACKIE BY JOSIE
Author: Caroline Preston
ISBN: 0-684-83077-9

by Caroline Preston ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 1, 1997

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A female grad student's coming-of-age tale, and a work so charming, wise, and self-assured it's hard to believe it's a first novel—by a Massachusetts author discovered at a Bennington writers' workshop. Josie Trask has been a student in English lit long enough to have married, given birth to a son, and mothered him for three years—all without yet having finished her dissertation. Perhaps it's her dissertation's subject that fails to motivate: a virtually unknown 19th-century woman poet from Josie's hometown of Chester, Mass., whose work might not be worth resurrecting. Then again, the irritating success of Josie's husband, Peter, might be the real problem. Having never experienced writer's block, Peter has sailed through his teaching gigs on the popular culture of the '60s, has been awarded a book contract for his own dissertation (From the Valley of the Dolls to the Ballad of the Green Berets), and is now planning to spend the summer in Berkeley drilling college students on the significance of '60s icons. Josie expects to accompany him until she's offered a summer job as researcher for glitzy, lowbrow British biographer Fiona Jones, who's doing a quick posthumous bio of Jackie Onassis. Unable to resist the $10,000, Josie takes the job and devotes herself to investigating JFK's love affairs and Jackie's terrible sorrows—only half-consciously suspecting that Peter may be doing his own philandering in Berkeley all the while. As the weeks pass, Jackie's triumphs and travails as a wife and mother begin eerily to resemble Josie's own—but happily, by the end of the summer, both feisty heroines manage to triumph in the face of adversity by winning the respect of their husbands, forging forward in their careers, and lavishing affection on their lucky kids. As first novels go, this one's a plum.

Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1997

ISBN: 0-684-83077-9

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Scribner

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WAR BRIDE'S SCRAPBOOK
by Caroline Preston

- BOOK REVIEW
THE SCRAPBOOK OF FRANKIE PRATT
by Caroline Preston

- BOOK REVIEW
GATSBY’S GIRL
by Caroline Preston

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.

Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.

Pub Date: March 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-609-60737-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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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.