A paean to friendship and the resilience of the human spirit.
A moving journey through grief, loss, war, and new beginnings for three childhood friends on the cusp of finally growing up.
Irish debut novelist Sheehan packs an emotional gut punch in his new book, as well as a fair number of laughs—a tightrope walk to be sure, but one he handles with aplomb. The story is set in the mid-1990s and concerns the efforts of Karl and Baz, two friends, to help their friend Tom, a failed war correspondent–turned–relief worker, who returns to their native Dublin from the Bosnian War a shellshocked ghost of his former self. Karl and Baz convince Tom to accompany them to an experimental treatment facility for PTSD in Northern California, a last-ditch effort to restore some semblance of a normal life for him. The novel alternates between Karl’s first-person narrative (which shifts between laugh-out-loud schoolboy humor and heartbreaking pathos, often in the same breath) and Tom’s sober, journalistic account of his time in Sarajevo, of atrocities witnessed, of friends made and lost. As such, the novel reads as part buddy road movie, part harrowing war movie, switching between hijinks and horror. Hovering above the entire narrative is the memory of Karl’s foster brother, Gabriel, who committed suicide not long before the book begins, an albatross of grief and regret hanging around the characters’ necks. The novel reads like a long, slow reveal—several of the most dramatic events that give the story its heft show up in the first few pages, but the hows and whys are slowly doled out over the course of the rest of the book, and this keeps the reader involved. Certain events in the third act may be a bit too far-fetched for some, but they serve the story well; with the depth of character on display here, a few plot points do not affect the emotional impact of the conclusion.
A paean to friendship and the resilience of the human spirit.Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-63246-066-0
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Ig Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
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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