Slow-paced but perceptive.
A young girl learns important lessons about family and friendship in debut author Randolph’s (What Happened to Tasha Blue?, 2013, etc.) coming-of-age novel.
Life seems to be full of disappointments for Rosa. First, her cousin Max comes to live with the family, and Rosa must adjust to his strange, silent presence in her home. Soon after, her friend Jeannie moves away, taking her beloved cat with her and leaving Rosa struggling to make new friends. Then there are her family’s financial troubles. Money is tight, and her father is dealing with career disappointments, especially after he struggles to get his book published and find a stable form of employment. With no television to distract her, Rosa begins to spend increasing amounts of time at the library, where her father’s gentle presence is her only protection against the gaze of the librarian, who disapproves of Rosa’s book choices. As reality becomes increasingly unglamorous, Rosa finds solace in books like The Secret Garden, which offer a way into the kind of world she wishes to inhabit. What books can’t offer, however, is a friend, and in spite of her efforts to befriend Patsy, a schoolmate whom she once disliked, Rosa feels as lonely as her father’s flower garden, which has been left to wilt due to the family’s financial troubles. All is not lost, however—the family manages to keep a tomato crop growing, and when a tall boy named Harry and his funny looking dog show up in the garden, an incredible friendship just might be in bloom. The plot meanders until Rosa meets Harry midway through the book; readers who identify with Rosa’s struggles will be happy to amble along, but those who crave action will be frustrated. As she grows older, the plot grows darker, and her character slowly matures. Rosa is a role model in her own right with her quiet intelligence and reluctance to conform, and readers may find a kindred spirit in her quiet resilience and everyday struggles.
Slow-paced but perceptive.Pub Date: June 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5077-8140-1
Page Count: 166
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 22, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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