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SAM(UEL)

Name: SAM(UEL)
Author: Colleen Gareau
ISBN: 978-0993845635

by Colleen Gareau ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

Gareau’s (My Mother’s Summer Vacations, 2014) latest book centers on Lizzie Valor, a 17-year-old girl in northern Ontario...

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Awards & Accolades

Our Verdict

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A novel about gender identity, abusive relationships and how to find one’s own way in the world.

Gareau’s (My Mother’s Summer Vacations, 2014) latest book centers on Lizzie Valor, a 17-year-old girl in northern Ontario who’s recently become pregnant by her abusive boyfriend, Rue. Lizzie births her baby, Sarah Jane, alone in a bathroom, and when her own father tells her that she must marry Rue to avoid shaming the family with an illegitimate child, she decides to run away and escape to Toronto, the closest big city. Lizzie and Sarah Jane take a 12-hour bus ride there, and once they arrive, they find shelter at hostels, restaurants and, when their money finally runs out, train stations as Lizzie struggles to find a job. At one of these stations, Lizzie encounters a transgender sex worker named Samantha—Sam for short—who notices that Lizzie has a baby. Sam eventually invites the two of them to stay with her until they can get back on their feet. She welcomes Lizzie into her home, with the agreement that Lizzie will cook for her and her other roommate, ZoZo. Eventually, Lizzie learns to be comfortable in her new abode; at the same time, she notices that’s she becoming more and more drawn to Sam, first as a friend and then romantically, despite her uncertainty about Sam’s transgender identity and sex-worker job. The book traces Lizzie and Sam’s budding relationship and explores both of the characters’ feelings about gender and attraction. It also details their respective attempts to tackle their own demons so that they may live independent, successful and flourishing lives. Gareau’s intriguing novel explores some timely, substantial themes, including how the world views and treats transgender people and also how transgender people view and treat themselves. Along the way, it engagingly addresses a range of other issues, including addiction and homelessness. The author also does a particularly good job of illuminating the effects that abuse can have on relationships, both familial and romantic.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: 978-0993845635

Page Count: -

Publisher: CreateSpace

Review Posted Online: Dec. 1, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

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.

Pub Date: July 11, 1960

ISBN: 0060935464

Page Count: 323

Publisher: Lippincott

Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE ALCHEMIST

by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

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Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.

The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.