An earnest, if overlong, novel about the lasting effects of a Bangladeshi Muslim childhood in England.
A girl from a conservative household grows into a woman torn between tradition and independence in Lee’s debut novel.
Growing up in a Bangladeshi immigrant family in Ashcroft, England, Eleanor is raised according to her mother’s Muslim faith. “We are not here to judge what is written,” her mother tells her, “only Allah knows what is written for us.” This notion of things being written doesn’t sit well with Eleanor, for why would Allah write such terrible things? The man who molests her at the mosque, for instance? Or the violence that Eleanor and her mother suffer at the hands of her father? At the age of 7, Eleanor is drawn to Mrs. Abbots, a friendly woman in a fur coat whom she meets while putting flyers under windshield wipers in Ashcroft to promote her father’s restaurant. Mrs. Abbots teaches her that life gives people the freedom to make their own choices, and, inspired by that idea, Eleanor attends college, moves out of the family home, gets a job, and begins to travel the world. She seems on track for a liberated, self-determined life but feels she owes it to her mother to enter into a traditional marriage, as she promised she would. She begins to see Syed, a Bengali man who would please her parents but who does not share Eleanor’s views on female independence. Will Eleanor end up a subservient housewife like her mother or find the freedom to write her own story? Lee tells Eleanor’s tale in smooth, expressive prose that captures her protagonist’s inner turmoil: “I woke up in the morning, staring emptily at the ceiling. Syed had already left for work. I could just walk out and leave, couldn’t I? I thought as I looked at the door. How many mornings had I let that thought run through my mind, only to unconvince myself?” At 570 pages, the book is far too long, particularly since the reader has a pretty good sense of where it is going from the start. That said, people caught between religious and secular cultures should be able to relate to Eleanor’s struggles and may see themselves in her story.
An earnest, if overlong, novel about the lasting effects of a Bangladeshi Muslim childhood in England.Pub Date: Dec. 9, 2019
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 526
Publisher: Loving Creative Inspirational Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 3, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
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
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