by Christina Oxenberg ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 1997
Lovers of romantic intrigue among the royals be warned: This flighty tale of one simple-minded child of privileged descent—by the daughter of Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia, sister of Dynasty star Catherine Oxenberg, and author of an equally frivolous collection of anecdotes, Taxi (1986)—is highly unlikely to spur fantasies of life in a more gracious universe. Maria Moses—18, attractive, the daughter of dispossessed (Yugoslavian) royalty on her mother's side and East Hampton wealth on her father's—might seem in a position to take New York by storm as she moves to that city from London, where she was raised. Sadly, though, she has only a small allowance from her father and finds that with no ability to type, spell, or even converse intelligently it's hard to pay her rent. But Maria's appalling ignorance is hardly her own fault: Her beautiful mother's lifelong obsession with romantic escapades, New Age nonsense, and alien visitations left little room for the proper care of her daughter. When little Maria dared grieve over the death of her best friend, she was thrown into a home for emotionally ill children. Tortured at the home by a vicious fellow student, left uneducated and vaguely traumatized, Maria, who's actually forced to squat in the Park Avenue guest rooms of increasingly resentful wealthy friends, is an easy target for the first con man who happens along. He appears in the form of her parents' archenemy—the married, middle-aged Tino Brooks, who deftly seduces Maria, then manipulates her into helping him transfer a valuable Scottish castle of her mother's over to him. Maria's actions destroy not only her mother's only chance at financial solvency, but—Maria realizes belatedly—her own as well. Oxenberg's heroine is so thick-headed, and her social set so unpleasant, that even the author's lightly ironic tone can't salvage this debut. Readers will drift off early, grateful for lives lived far from the haunts of the rich and famous.
Pub Date: June 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-684-80093-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1997
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
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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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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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