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UCHECHI

Name: UCHECHI
Author: Chukwudi Eze
ISBN: 978-1456749453

THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE

by Chukwudi Eze ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2011

An uneven but engaging story about racism and the transformative power of love.

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Eze’s (Leadership Stories of the Mother Hen, 2012) debut novel offers a study of racial prejudice as seen through the eyes of young lovers.

Uchechi grows up in an unnamed village, seemingly in Africa. As a child, Uchechi steals a wresting trophy that his and a neighboring village are fighting over and threatens to throw it in a river, thus preventing a war. Although Uchechi loves his community, his great intelligence and spirit create many options for him, including the opportunity to study at a famous university abroad. Once he arrives, Uchechi encounters racial prejudice for the first time; his naïveté about how to handle it may strike readers as somewhat unrealistic, but it helps showcase the extremity of the racism that he encounters. For example, a classmate, Annarossa, obsessively works to get a higher grade than Uchechi because it would “shame her family” to be surpassed by a dark-skinned boy from “that region.” But when she fails to top him, her view of racial superiority is turned upside down, and she abandons her hostility and tries to learn more about him. She and Uchechi soon fall in love and start on a tumultuous path that crosses forbidden racial boundaries in their town. Despite the novel’s title, the story is less about Uchechi and more about Annarossa’s journey to develop her own beliefs and confront her family’s militant racism. The novel explores racism’s erroneous, rigidly held assumptions, and depicts the courage it takes to stand up against such prejudice, as well as the cost of doing so. Although the story has its compelling moments, there are some clichés and incorrect word choices (“he recollected himself” instead of “he collected himself” and “the dye is cast” instead of “the die is cast”) scattered throughout. Some readers may feel that the narrative has little emotional depth, but the high personal stakes for the characters make it compelling.

An uneven but engaging story about racism and the transformative power of love.

Pub Date: March 10, 2011

ISBN: 978-1456749453

Page Count: 160

Publisher: AuthorHouse

Review Posted Online: Feb. 20, 2013

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.

Pub Date: May 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-345-45073-6

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.