by Debi Alper ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2005
A disappointing lightweight.
An ex-heroin addict comes to the aid of a sex-trade victim in England.
British author Alper (Nirvana Bites, 2004) presents a quirky, less traditional portrait of contemporary England, as seen from the 20th floor of a grim high-rise in one of London’s seedier neighborhoods. But her story is less slice-of-life, more comic thriller. Her heroine, Jo Cooper, is a former drug addict now piecing her life back together—she makes jewelry, gardens and acts as sales assistant to Smokey Pete, an agoraphobic candle-maker. Jo’s life is an emotional void—almost no friends, no lovers, no past other than drugs. After rescuing a man dangling from a roof, a deed for which she is rewarded with a gift of £500, she treats herself to an outing to Brighton. Along the way she meets Tatiana, a young Ukrainian on the run from thugs who have pressed her into prostitution. Tatiana steals Jo’s money and vanishes, opening Jo’s eyes to the underclass of immigrant women. Later Tatiana resurfaces, beaten up and terrified of going outdoors. When she does, she is chased, but she escapes, demonstrating an impressive range of athletic ability. It turns out that Tatiana is really a one-time circus acrobat named Irina. In an effort to help her, Jo turns to her old drug counselor Mags, who lives in a commune. Mags and her friends install the woman at Smokey Pete’s apartment while plans are made to spirit her out of the country. But before they can leave for Amsterdam, the omnipresent baddies firebomb the place.
A disappointing lightweight.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-297-82991-2
Page Count: 232
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson/Trafalgar
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2005
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by Hanya Yanagihara ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2015
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
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Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
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