A heavy-handed, intermittently diverting satire.
From a former Melrose Place star, a spottily incisive tell-all about diet- and thinness-obsessed Hollywood.
Kate, supporting actress on the smash-hit nighttime soap Generations, should feel blessed. Two years ago her career was in the can when the “bloids” outed her as ten or so pounds overweight. But that was before Hamilton, her handsome manager/husband, took her in hand. Not only does he personally supervise her daily weigh-ins and workouts, he’s recruited her into his marriage guru Penelope’s unique cult of “surrendered wifehood.” Dreading an impending lingerie scene, Kate binges on honey-roasted peanuts. Luckily, shooting is delayed: The star of Generations, Sapphire, is in full wardrobe meltdown. None of Sapphire’s outfits, purchased during the many phases of her own fat wars, fit. Sapphire is in denial that her own appetite for muffins, Snickers and caramel lattes is the problem. The anxiety induced by Hamilton’s high-handed sanctimony and treacherously conditional love (reminiscent of Kate’s mother’s) proves slimming; ultimately, the director deems the former “Katie-cow” too emaciated for skimpy underthings. Hamilton, seeking a more suitable mate from the A-List of narcissism, becomes Sapphire’s manager and lover. Abetting Sapphire’s quest for primetime—if not world—domination, he ejects Kate from both the marriage and Generations. Meanwhile, Sapphire’s agent Michael, feeling redundant, writes short stories at Kate’s favorite Starbucks. He’s mired in a web of deceit. Not only does he flirt with Kate without revealing his identity, he’s promised Sapphire the lead in a nonexistent biopic of Vivien Leigh—now he must package the movie himself to prevent a total diva implosion. Kate’s makeup person, recovering alcoholic Paige, is her sidekick and sounding board. The characters’ witty repartee tends to pall as the banter drags on. Hilariously hyperbolic at first, the self-absorption of Hamilton and Sapphire has a similarly brief shelf life. Worse, Kate’s willed helplessness undermines the credibility of her struggle for selfhood in the snake pit.
A heavy-handed, intermittently diverting satire.Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-7679-2749-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Broadway
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2007
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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