A fascinating tale that’s held back by monotonous storytelling.
Against the dramatic backdrop of McCarthyism and the civil rights movement, a young Finnish woman living in the Midwest discovers the truth about her family while hiding her own secrets.
In 1983, shy, quiet 14-year-old Danny arrives home from his Wisconsin school and discovers that Lempi, his mother, has committed suicide. As he and his father, Toivo, mourn, he discovers an old newspaper photo of his parents from the 1967 Milwaukee riots and wonders what secrets lie in their seemingly innocuous past. Thus begins debut author Frahmann’s epic, globe-spanning work of historical fiction that follows the lives of Finnish family members who struggle to right the world’s wrongs and encounter heartbreak along the way. The story flashes back to Lempi’s fury-soaked youth, filled with Vietnam War protests and anger at the FBI for terrorizing her own mother into killing herself. Pauline, a university administrator who takes Lempi under her wing, encourages the girl to marry sweet, laid-back Toivo, but even after marriage and a baby, Lempi continues to fight for what she believes in, with catastrophic results. Pauline’s interest in Lempi turns out to be quite personal: She is Lempi’s biological mother, a secret that has burdened her for decades. The story unfolds, revealing more about Risto—Lempi’s biological father, who left his homeland to work in Russia—as well as Eero, Lempi’s adoptive father, who remains haunted by the losses in his own life. Frahmann’s story is an ambitious one, and his characters—especially Pauline—are intriguing. However, the book has a lackluster tone that never quite springs to life, with passages that feel a bit too didactic to be engaging: “Pauline also introduced Lempi to the real Milwaukee—a city filled with hard-working, middle-class people who built things and came home each night to modest homes that were well kept and near leafy parks.” Dialogue struggles to balance realistic conversations with historical information, making the characters sound stilted. Overall, it’s a solid effort but one that might not be engaging enough to appeal to a wide audience.
A fascinating tale that’s held back by monotonous storytelling.Pub Date: July 30, 2014
ISBN: 978-0692236482
Page Count: 324
Publisher: Loon Town Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 16, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
