by D. Clark Gill ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 23, 2017
Bizarre and sometimes gloomy but a charming drollness prevails.
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Residents are in danger of federal agents destroying their small U.S. town just to eliminate a singular threat in Gill’s darkly amusing debut.
Dayville is a place of government-fixed wages and prohibited unions. Third-world salaries allow companies to compete globally but also prompt the town’s rampant homelessness. Ajeno, 400-plus pounds, prefers staying inside his Eden Palace apartment, eating cookies baked by roomie/fiancee Crystal, an elementary schoolteacher. He does occasionally leave the abode, getting himself a gig as cook at Mom’s Diner. His co-worker Enrique Ruiz is undercover for the cartel, working an operation that could hide individuals from any law enforcement using radar. Federal agent John Doe is aware of such an operation in Dayville, just not anyone specifically involved. He believes the most cost-effective way to neutralize the threat is to blow the dam and flood the town. Though Crystal cares for Ajeno and wants a baby with him, others don’t warm up to him. Ruiz, for one, distrusts him—Ajeno’s surname is Garcia but he doesn’t look Mexican—and believes he’s a cop or a cartel enemy. Doe likewise deems Ajeno suspicious; the fact that he draws so much attention to himself makes him either a terrible choice for cartel operative or the perfect one. Ruiz’s operation, meanwhile, entails coercing certain individuals into giving up necessary codes, leading to a shockingly fruitless kidnapping and Ruiz getting roughed up. But if the federal agents can’t identify Ruiz as the operative, Dayville and everyone in it will be gone forever. Despite the town’s lowly status and looming annihilation, Gill’s tale is comical and rife with kooky characters. There’s homeless Sally, obsessively reciting a mantra with the hope she won’t die in particularly brutal fashion; Eden Palace resident Beth, arguing with her multiple personalities; and kids in Crystal’s class, discussing beloved pets (rodents, cockroaches, etc.). Some of the humor is wonderfully absurd. The Dayville mayor and Doe negotiate over how many minutes before the dam explodes the agent will send a text-message warning. But the story’s generally sincere, starting with Ajeno. He comes across as naïve, seemingly oblivious to disparaging remarks on his weight, and is sometimes equated with an infant, as when his “baby-like face pouts.” But he’s not completely endearing; he’s more interested in Meeper Cheeper Chocolate Peepers than serious conversations with Crystal. A theme of family, too, augments the unity within Dayville. Tenants of Eden Palace, for example, have formed their own family. Crystal lost her parents, and Ajeno’s mom essentially disowned him, convinced that, despite what hospital records say, she didn’t give birth to him. A flashback with the couple reveals one of the more peculiar meet-cutes that readers are likely to encounter. The final act adds a ticking-clock scenario. Federal agents are anxious to set up explosives at the dam while a somewhat impatient cartel sends other members to Dayville. Hints throughout of an outlandish turn come to a head with an ending that will spark either laughs or head-scratching.
Bizarre and sometimes gloomy but a charming drollness prevails.Pub Date: June 23, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-64111-008-2
Page Count: 261
Publisher: Palmetto Publishing Group
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
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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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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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