Despite the platitudes, a potentially interesting young author.
A young author begins to find his voice with a debut novel focused on the power of friendship.
Chris Walker is in a rough situation: His mom is a drunk, his older brother has disappeared and his dad died a decade ago, cursing the remaining Walkers to a life of substance abuse in order to cope. Even high-schooler Chris regularly self-medicates, alternating among beer, pot and Oxycontin he lifted from his mom. In fact, the only thing Chris seems to have in his favor is his friends: Dave, Nyle and Jamar. The four inseparable buddies hang out, drink and party whenever possible–normal teenage behavior. It always seemed that one couldn’t function without the other three. But author Moore, an 18-year-old recent high school graduate himself, quickly calls the boys’ bond into question, first through a series of unintentional slights and then through two nearly tragic events that shake the quartet’s belief in each other. First, a car crash caused by Chris in a haze of depression and anger sends three of the boys to the hospital, where, after some bickering, they reconcile with typical teenage melodrama and histrionics. The friends later embark on a road trip to a dilapidated lake house where Chris and Dave face their personal demons, sparking some predictable epiphanies. This is where Moore runs into trouble. While his prose is generally satisfying (particularly considering his age), Moore isn’t always aware he’s walking on a well-worn path–at the beginning of the novel, he treats banalities like great insight. The plot, too, borders on stereotypical–slacker kids resolve to make good. The occasional petty high school bickering, while realistic, is at times an unnecessary diversion. It’s when Moore settles into his characters and their issues that he captures readers, creating such vivid portraits of teenage confusion, anger and chaos that they eclipse any of the novel’s other issues.
Despite the platitudes, a potentially interesting young author.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-935955-18-1
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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