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 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
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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