An overlong and poorly written tale of an amiable protagonist and a plausible portrayal of domestic violence.
In Keane’s debut, a battered woman is tormented by a violent ex-lover.
Dana Taylor, of Manchester, England, lives in a women’s refuge with daughters Amy and Kayleigh, hopefully safe from “first class crazy ass mentalist” ex-husband Ian. Her mates Katy, Mandy, Rose and Vicky also live at the refuge; like Dana, they have ex-lovers to avoid. Dana’s true love is “grafter” Logan, and although Dana has yet to resolve her relationship issues, sex with Logan is off the charts: “Pukka I. Shit.You. Not.” Insanely jealous Ian beat and choked Dana during pregnancy, and his parents ignored her screams until finally they sent the couple to live at Ian’s sister’s house. After a social worker intervened, Ian promised to do better. Dana gave him another chance, but he reverted to former behaviors. Haunted by the fear that Ian might return, Dana must decide if she can start anew and let Logan be the man in her life. Unfortunately, misspellings, run-on sentences, erroneous punctuation and changing tenses detract from the story: “I’ve been talking to Lee we’re gonna get this shit sorted once and for all babe my brothers just come back from afghan you met him at my cousins wedding a few years back.” Questionable grammar notwithstanding, Dana is a plucky sort who self-talks to the back of her eyelids. Her life may be in the loo, but luckily, “alpha male” Logan is “damn hot and sexy.” In addition to phrases repeating the title, there are frequent instances of “oh my god,” typically referring to Logan’s consummate lovemaking skills. Still, the narrative adeptly illustrates the low self-esteem often found in abusive relationships, as evidenced by Dana and her companions.
An overlong and poorly written tale of an amiable protagonist and a plausible portrayal of domestic violence.Pub Date: Jan. 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-1493780426
Page Count: 218
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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