Despite a few flaws, an engaging tale about a confused young man settling into adulthood.
A young man becomes desperate for female companionship and repeatedly sets his sights on the wrong women in this novel.
Peter Michael Webb is thrilled to be attending the elite Stepney Green College as a transfer student. Raised by a single mother of modest means, Pete struggles to fit in with all the rich kids at his new school and only finds a couple of friends. The story opens as Pete daydreams about his recent obsession, a female student named Brandi Sparks. After taking her on a couple of dates, Pete overhears Brandi mocking his impecuniousness, and then watches her fall into the arms of his friend Todd Galloway. Pete thus finishes school in the company of his only remaining cohort, Corinne Aldrich, who seems to have feelings for him that are more than friendly. Reluctant to ruin their friendship, Pete focuses instead on chasing his career goals and discovering love elsewhere. Following graduation, he moves back to his hometown to get a job and work on his novel. As he deals with his own dysfunctional family, Pete does achieve some professional success. His accomplishments bring with them increased opportunities for finding dates, but he begins to wonder what exactly he’s striving for and whether any of the women he pursued was ever right for him. While many of the women in Hamilton’s story are portrayed in a negative light, so are multiple male characters, who prove themselves to be unreliable backstabbers. But Pete is so earnest and naïve that readers will find themselves rooting for him. Told in the third person, the book shifts between the perspectives of Pete, his friends, and his family in a manner that leads to a sometimes choppy narrative. The novel also suffers from its use of old-fashioned language and actions. College students frequently employ outdated phrases and terminology, and cellphones barely appear (and even then, text messages are formal and lengthy). These anachronisms lead the work to read more like historical fiction from the 1960s or ’70s. Even so, the author manages to create intriguing characters with complicated interior worlds. While the ending is somewhat predictable, the journey to the story’s conclusion is ultimately satisfying.
Despite a few flaws, an engaging tale about a confused young man settling into adulthood.Pub Date: March 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-72835-091-2
Page Count: 344
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Nov. 20, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
One of the noblest characters in American literature gets a novel worthy of him.
Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as told from the perspective of a more resourceful and contemplative Jim than the one you remember.
This isn’t the first novel to reimagine Twain’s 1885 masterpiece, but the audacious and prolific Everett dives into the very heart of Twain’s epochal odyssey, shifting the central viewpoint from that of the unschooled, often credulous, but basically good-hearted Huck to the more enigmatic and heroic Jim, the Black slave with whom the boy escapes via raft on the Mississippi River. As in the original, the threat of Jim’s being sold “down the river” and separated from his wife and daughter compels him to run away while figuring out what to do next. He's soon joined by Huck, who has faked his own death to get away from an abusive father, ramping up Jim’s panic. “Huck was supposedly murdered and I’d just run away,” Jim thinks. “Who did I think they would suspect of the heinous crime?” That Jim can, as he puts it, “[do] the math” on his predicament suggests how different Everett’s version is from Twain’s. First and foremost, there's the matter of the Black dialect Twain used to depict the speech of Jim and other Black characters—which, for many contemporary readers, hinders their enjoyment of his novel. In Everett’s telling, the dialect is a put-on, a manner of concealment, and a tactic for survival. “White folks expect us to sound a certain way and it can only help if we don’t disappoint them,” Jim explains. He also discloses that, in violation of custom and law, he learned to read the books in Judge Thatcher’s library, including Voltaire and John Locke, both of whom, in dreams and delirium, Jim finds himself debating about human rights and his own humanity. With and without Huck, Jim undergoes dangerous tribulations and hairbreadth escapes in an antebellum wilderness that’s much grimmer and bloodier than Twain’s. There’s also a revelation toward the end that, however stunning to devoted readers of the original, makes perfect sense.
One of the noblest characters in American literature gets a novel worthy of him.Pub Date: March 19, 2024
ISBN: 9780385550369
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of...
Hoover’s (November 9, 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.
At first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers; Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. Lily swears she’ll never end up in another abusive home, but when Ryle starts to show all the same warning signs that her mother ignored, Lily learns just how hard it is to say goodbye. When Ryle is not in the throes of a jealous rage, his redeeming qualities return, and Lily can justify his behavior: “I think we needed what happened on the stairwell to happen so that I would know his past and we’d be able to work on it together,” she tells herself. Lily marries Ryle hoping the good will outweigh the bad, and the mother-daughter dynamics evolve beautifully as Lily reflects on her childhood with fresh eyes. Diary entries fancifully addressed to TV host Ellen DeGeneres serve as flashbacks to Lily’s teenage years, when she met her first love, Atlas Corrigan, a homeless boy she found squatting in a neighbor’s house. When Atlas turns up in Boston, now a successful chef, he begs Lily to leave Ryle. Despite the better option right in front of her, an unexpected complication forces Lily to cut ties with Atlas, confront Ryle, and try to end the cycle of abuse before it’s too late. The relationships are portrayed with compassion and honesty, and the author’s note at the end that explains Hoover’s personal connection to the subject matter is a must-read.
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of the survivors.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1036-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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