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BURNING SOULS

A tale that mostly succeeds in fictionalizing the last 30 years of climate change’s effects.

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Four friends attempt to save the world in this environmentally themed thriller.

Earth’s biosphere is in a death spiral, and things are about to get worse. This is especially frustrating to those who have worked for years to attempt to convince recalcitrant humanity of the need to change its practices. Beginning in the late 1990s, four idealistic young people set out to do just that: save the world from the looming threat of climate change. The four met at Cambridge University: Sagan Cleveland, an atmospheric chemistry student from inner-city Detroit; Ebitsubo Jiro, an international business law student from Fukushima, Japan; Jenny Fung, an engineering student from Malaysia; and Simone Cohen, a Canadian journalist studying international relations. The next decade proves a highly educational one even as it takes them each to different places around the world. Another decade introduces new struggles: Nuclear disasters, new technologies, coverups, and corporate greed challenge the endurance—and friendships—of the four. Like everyone else, Sagan and the others live through climate-spurred social upheavals that alter humanity’s relationship with Earth. But, with the inaction of the masses, will they be able to find a way to do something about climate change before it’s too late? Chernushenko’s (Sustainable Sports Management, 2001, etc.) prose is smooth even as he litters it with exposition regarding both the plot and the real crises facing humanity: “In place of fees,” Simone’s “share from book sales could be given to charity….‘I’ll split it between Puerto Rico hurricane victims and California forest fire crews!’ ” The timely novel has a Michener-ian heft to it (the book is 666 pages), and Chernushenko takes a largely effective kitchen sink approach to dramatizing climate activism in the form of his four heroes. But he does that at the expense of some verisimilitude—readers will never truly forget that this is a highly didactic work meant to educate them about the environment—and for this reason, it isn’t as thrilling a piece of fiction as it could be. The book tries to be as big as the problems it tackles, but one can’t help but wonder if a smaller, specialized story would not serve as a more poignant educational tool.

A tale that mostly succeeds in fictionalizing the last 30 years of climate change’s effects.

Pub Date: May 3, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-9991138-0-3

Page Count: 670

Publisher: Green & Gold Inc.

Review Posted Online: Feb. 11, 2020

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MAGIC HOUR

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

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

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

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