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SAM(UEL)

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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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

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MAGIC HOUR

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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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

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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