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Pretty from a Distance

Name: Pretty from a Distance
Author: Cat McCarrey
ISBN: 978-1479347278

by Cat McCarrey ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 19, 2013

A highly readable, if uneven, novel featuring characters that will be hard for readers to forget.

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A woman tries to shed her troubling past with the help of friends—and fate—in this debut novel.

Glorianna is assaulted by her boyfriend, Vince, and a lecherous bar patron and winds up bloodied, face down on the pavement outside the bar. An angelic, unknown man comes to her rescue, but his presence is fleeting. Five years later, Glorianna is still with Vince, and their nomadic wanderings in a camper have led them to Corona d’Espinas, N.M. Quiet, wise Fred lives in a trailer nearby; he suffers from panic attacks, just as Glorianna always has. He introduces her to several other warm people: the spitfire waitress, Valerie; the chatty bar owner, Roy, and his mystic wife, Sonia; Roy’s handsome nephew Doug and his daughter Melanie; and Casey, the sheriff. Glorianna grows close to all of them, especially Doug, but still endures Vince’s physical and sexual attacks at night. Her new friends drop hints that she could do better than Vince, but still she returns to him, despite the revelation that Vince is seeing another woman. Doug and Glorianna continue their budding relationship, and she promises herself that she will have a new life by the new year. But in the novel’s dramatic crescendo, startling news from Glorianna’s family reveals her past secrets, provoking Vince to do his worst. Readers may have difficulty keeping track of the novel’s dozens of characters, but their dialogue and interactions are flawless, creating a warm Southwest community with just enough local color. The story’s most puzzling aspects are Glorianna’s attraction to Vince and her decision to remain in their relationship. Their tangled past isn’t fully revealed until well into the novel, and for much of the novel, Vince’s characterization isn’t particularly complex. Readers may wish that the novel had better explored why Glorianna stays with Vince, and what her life could be like without him, instead of anchoring the story in their violent relationship.

A highly readable, if uneven, novel featuring characters that will be hard for readers to forget.

Pub Date: March 19, 2013

ISBN: 978-1479347278

Page Count: 470

Publisher: CreateSpace

Review Posted Online: June 12, 2013

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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CARRIE

by Stephen King ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 8, 1974

King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...

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Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).

All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.

King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."

Pub Date: April 8, 1974

ISBN: 0385086954

Page Count: 216

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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NEVER FLINCH
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Appreciations: Carrie Turns 40

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- BOOK TO SCREEN
New ‘Carrie’ Series in the Works at Amazon

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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.