by Christopher Wilde ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 14, 2017
A captivating fictional premise that becomes stymied by an underwhelming political drama.
A young social media mogul incites a war between American millennials and the boomer generation in this novel.
A beautiful teenage girl, known only as Atwood, becomes an internet sensation and builds a commercial empire around her ballooning fame. She amasses a fortune—she eventually starts her own website and peddles a new book and signature perfume—and wins the adoration of millions of millennials, especially appealing to those disenfranchised by a laggard economy and the ascendancy of Donald Trump to the presidency. Atwood surrounds herself with an infinitely loyal coterie of followers and begins to use incendiary rhetoric to pit them against the boomers she interprets as their oppressors. She starts to encourage minor provocations—verbal altercations, for example—between her young disciples and their boomer targets and aggrandizes her wealth by burglarizing independent-living facilities and demanding money from the terrified inhabitants. Those “raids” mark the beginning of an aggressive militarization of what becomes known as Atwood’s Army, an organized force that mobilizes for war after President Trump essentially reinstates the draft. The war claims the lives of 20 million boomers, enough to alter the demographic landscape of the country, before an armistice is reached. The tale is told in the first person by one of Atwood’s recruits—a vaguely drawn character left appropriately unnamed except for when he once dishonestly refers to himself as “Tom.” In the wake of the conflict, he tries to find Atwood—no one even knows if she is alive—while being pursued by the FBI. Wilde’s (The Patriot of Last Resort, 2015) effort deftly captures the resentment that so many millennials harbor for the world they inherited. But the characters are woefully underdeveloped: Atwood has all the depth of an avatar, and the narrator is no less nebulous. In addition, while a fantastical story necessarily departs from the world of quotidian believability, the plot is so unrestrainedly implausible that it devolves into silliness. All the world’s ills are repeatedly blamed by Atwood on sociopathic boomers, whose mental illness, she claims, is a function of long-term lead poisoning. Though under 100 pages and filled with action, the book still manages to feel sluggish.
A captivating fictional premise that becomes stymied by an underwhelming political drama.Pub Date: Sept. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9965307-3-6
Page Count: 164
Publisher: The Bend Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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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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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