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MY WORST DATE

Name: MY WORST DATE
Author: David Leddick
ISBN: 0-312-14689-2

by David Leddick ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1996

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A disarming, memorable debut from Leddick, a former ballet dancer. If the classic groundings for the novel are character and plot, and if the pivot of the gay novel is experience, Leddick can claim undisputed mastery of that crucial triad. Hugo Carey, 16, lives quietly in Miami Beach with his mother, Iris, a struggling, Italian-born real-estate agent who once traveled with the international jet set. In Miami, Hugo passes his days brooding lightly over his future, usually with Macha, his best friend and confidante, until Glenn Elliot Paul, a dreamboat with a shadowy past, lopes into his life. Warm to Iris at first, Glenn immediately lets it become clear that he wants some action with Hugo as well, and thus an awkward pair of affairs is hatched. Hugo weaves two webs of deception at the same time: His exertions (notably athletic) with Glenn, and his secret job as a stripper. Not that Iris, whose first-person contributions lend a practical, slightly world-weary Euro-Çlan to the proceedings, would die if she found out. She knows enough to understand that Glenn is too handsome to be devoted, ultimately, to anyone but himself. Glenn remains the book's cipher, a rank libertine who nevertheless winds up becoming a sounding board for everyone else's anxieties, even while arranging three-ways for sailors on leave. As for Hugo, the story follows him through a stint as model and actor, allows him to confront his pornographer father and a host of zany—yet mostly warm—ancillary characters, then plops the whole central cast down in Coconut Grove to ride out Hurricane Andrew. Leddick never relents in his foreshadowing tease of something dire on the horizon, nor does he prematurely tip his hand. Gay fiction of a high order: Insightful, funny, prickly, opinionated, knowing, lovely, and sad.

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1996

ISBN: 0-312-14689-2

Page Count: 288

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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MAGIC HOUR

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

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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

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

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

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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.