A complex, powerful concept strained by its own length and ambition.
Ware’s debut novel spans decades, taking on the abortion debate from the immediate aftermath of Roe v. Wade to the present day.
The first chapter begins in 1973. Candice can’t bear the thought of having a second child with her abusive husband. She visits Dr. Nixon, a small-town obstetrician who’s never performed an abortion, and he makes the procedure his life’s work. The book, however, doesn’t commit to one side of the debate. Dr. Nixon’s employees and family balk at his choices. Even his nephew, Robert, a medical student hoping to follow in his uncle’s footsteps, can’t understand his idol’s pro-choice position. The narrative then stretches toward the present, introducing Kyle Decker, an elusive bomber of abortion clinics; the cabal supporting him; and the FBI agents tasked with his capture. Little by little, the disparate plotlines begin to converge as Decker finds a lover and accomplice in Alice, and Robert wrestles with his uncle and his own morality. The variety of perspectives is a strength, but it comes at the expense of character development. In fact, any deeper exploration of the characters often ends up reduced to overly expository spurts: “This time, his mother’s laughing cruelty would not go unpunished…this woman, who had once tried to kill him, ‘her little abortion.’ ” Similarly inelegant prose appears throughout, blunting the complexity of the subject matter. The novel does its best to remain fresh, discarding points of view when they’ve served their purpose and maintaining a sense of emotional drama.
A complex, powerful concept strained by its own length and ambition.Pub Date: Sept. 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-0692245415
Page Count: -
Publisher: Christmas Tree Press
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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