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THE UNEXPECTED CONNECTION

Name: THE UNEXPECTED CONNECTION
Author: Dena Levin
ISBN: 978-1-4808-6860-1

by Dena Levin ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

Editorial carelessness notwithstanding, laughs and warnings abound for straight single women.

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Levin debuts her first novel, an exploration of the dating scene from the perspectives of two single women at very different stages of their lives.

During a hiatus between jobs, and freshly out of a relationship with her boyfriend, Vanessa, who’s in her 30s, visits her grandmother in Florida. Sitting by the pool, she meets Michelle, a widow in her 60s, and they strike up a conversation about the perils of dating. Michelle mentions she has been working on a book about her adventures and, more often, misadventures meeting men after the death of her husband. Over the course of the next week or so, Michelle shares portions of her work with Vanessa, and they discuss its progression. The journal, narrated by Michelle, becomes a book within a book, each chapter prefaced and followed by Vanessa’s commentary, which includes short descriptions of some of her own failed romantic escapades. Gradually, the women conclude that contemporary dating is similarly crappy for women of any age. Michelle assigns a variety of monikers to her dates, many of whom sound like egocentric adolescents. There’s “The Squeezer,” “The Groper,” and, not to be forgotten, “Panties Man,” a clod who, on their first date, thought it would be enticing for Michelle to go to the restaurant’s bathroom and remove her underwear. The author takes readers down a long trail littered with “clueless” men behaving badly. It’s an interesting, sometimes depressing, and frequently funny journey. Unfortunately, the prose is inconsistent, with too many instances of awkward and clichéd phrasing, e.g., “After listening to all that Michelle had told me, hit me like a ton of bricks.” And the relationship between Vanessa and Michelle feels like a contrived narrative construct. Still, the compendium of cautions, pitfalls, and triumphs in the age of internet dating successfully communicates the author’s “message to men to respect women and for women in turn to respect themselves.”

Editorial carelessness notwithstanding, laughs and warnings abound for straight single women.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: 978-1-4808-6860-1

Page Count: 370

Publisher: Archway Publishing

Review Posted Online: Jan. 21, 2019

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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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.

Pub Date: June 15, 1951

ISBN: 0316769177

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- SEEN & HEARD
Salinger Focus of NYPL Exhibit

- SEEN & HEARD
NYC Mayoral Candidates Name Favorite Gotham Books

- APPRECIATIONS
Holden Caulfield: Forever Young

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JURASSIC PARK

by Michael Crichton ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 7, 1990

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Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.