Thoughtful travelogue whose terrain includes the mother/daughter minefield.
A college student journeys to Panama to track down the father she never knew in this debut novel from Henríquez (Come Together, Fall Apart, 2006).
The product of an adulterous affair between a military wife and a Panama Canal worker, Miraflores (Mira) Reid was raised by single mom Catherine to believe that her biological father had no interest in being a part of her life. Mira is shocked, then, to discover a stash of letters testifying to Gatun Gallardo’s passionate yearning to be with her and her mother; it was Catherine who decided they should be apart. Unfortunately, confronting Mom is not really an option, since she is suffering from early-onset Alzheimer’s and becoming more helpless each day. Anxious to find out more about Gatun’s world, Mira hires a health aide to look after Catherine, takes a leave from school and jets down to Panama to find him. Shortly after arriving in the tropical splendor of Central America, she meets a semi-employed young charmer named Danilo all too eager to help out the pretty tourist. His uncle Hernán also takes a liking to her, in a more paternal way, and she stays with the two bachelors while hitting one dead end after another. Danilo, it turns out, knows more than he lets on, and Mira’s poignant discovery of what actually happened to her dad complicates their burgeoning relationship. Back in Chicago, Mira has to deal with her mother’s worsening condition and her own lingering anger over the family life they could have had. It is a lot for a young person to handle, as Mira is forced to face her fears and learn from Catherine’s mistakes. The talented Henríquez writes plenty of soaring passages, and Danilo is a wonderful character; but like its conflicted heroine, the novel seems unsure whether it belongs in Chicago or Panama.
Thoughtful travelogue whose terrain includes the mother/daughter minefield.Pub Date: April 16, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-59448-855-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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