bookshelf

LISA33

Name: LISA33
Author: Dan Allan
ISBN: 0-670-03165-8

by Dan Allan ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 8, 2004

All this falls far short of porn. Log on and join the fun.

bookshelf

Swift, immensely amusing first novel, a Brief Encounter set in Internet chat rooms, that starts marvelously, has a slight dip, then holds you to the bitter end.

Allan’s imaginings sound right on the nose for sexual frankness and Interchat vulgarity in 1999. His chat room is Literoticus.com and the members are, among others, Lisa33 (a mom in Georgia), Tagaabbcc, Moonbeam, Liquidjoy, Steve, Sandydee, Satish11, Humbert, LolaB, and MySweetPussyWantsU. This is largely a mutual masturbation society whose “masked” members keep getting out of hand and into intense, possibly life-changing real feelings about each other—not that their hand-sex doesn’t rise to real feelings. Newcomer Tag meets Lisa33 and is fairly surprised when she jumps into libidinous chat that, as any member builds toward orgasm, is forever cut into by maddening cross-talk from those with their own agendas. LolaB wants to know whether Matthew Arnold was an elitist and which three developments of the ’60s revolution are still with us—she has papers to write. The very restrained Satish11, an Indian medical student and still a virgin, has no idea how to stroke a girl on the Net. For heavier, more private feelings, Lisa33 and Tag, whose spouses have no idea that Literoticus.com even exists, go off to Instant Messaging or write long midnight e-mails. As their romance deepens, both reveal devotion to their kids and unhappy marriages. These fantasy lovers take on a heartfelt reality for each other, and they want to meet. But the first rule of chat rooms is never to reveal your identity, and Tag is a corporate lawyer. Moonbeam does dare to meet Steve, but is ruefully disappointed by him in sex and every other way. Should Tag and Lisa33 disturb their marriages, or maintain their “shallow, passion-free, tragedy-free, invalid existences”?

All this falls far short of porn. Log on and join the fun.

Pub Date: March 8, 2004

ISBN: 0-670-03165-8

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

bookshelf

BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

bookshelf

Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.

Pub Date: May 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-345-45073-6

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

bookshelf

THE ALCHEMIST

by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

bookshelf

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.