Affecting, but not engaging enough for its length.
In this novel, a woman deals with the death of a friend, an unsatisfying marriage, cross-country moves, single motherhood and a new love as she tries to build a life of her own.
Judy, mother of two young children and wife of Tony, a demanding Mexican doctor, enters a tailspin after the climbing death of a friend during a day at Joshua Tree National Park. Did he commit suicide? Could she have helped him if she’d taken the time to talk? The thought that she somehow failed him leads her to reconsider her life, agonizing over the deficiencies of a marriage that has never been ideal. Her tears push Judy farther away from Tony, whose machismo demands a smiling, obedient wife, and even leads to an act of marital rape. Claiming to be taking the children on a trip to Tennessee to visit the parents Judy rarely sees, she’s actually leaving Tony—which also means giving up the friends who have been her support. Back in the South, she must finally confront the death of her younger brother years ago, her fraught relationship with her mother, her divorce from Tony and subsequent financial worries, and the possibility of a new life with Alex, an engineer dealing with his own issues. While Judy can be compelling, her constant introspection often becomes tedious. For what is a fairly conventional story of a woman finding herself over a period of 10 only occasionally eventful years, readers may tire of so much teeth gnashing and rehashing of the past. The biblical references—the book’s parts are called “Genesis,” “Exodus,” “Song of Solomon” and “Revelation”—seem to be at odds with the repeated mention of Judy’s loss of faith. Alex’s breakdown in Hawaii comes out of nowhere, and his emotional problems disappear just as quickly. In the slow middle parts, more showing rather than telling would break up lengthy paragraphs and help make the story read less like a disguised memoir.
Affecting, but not engaging enough for its length.Pub Date: March 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-1481952712
Page Count: 548
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
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.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
