The impressive plot earns this project a B, but the banal dialogue and wimpy heroine downgrade it to a C.
An intimate glimpse at an elite college’s secret clubs.
Amy Haskel, a harried literature student at Eli University (a thinly veiled Yale, the author’s alma mater) is concerned about her future. An Ivy League diploma no longer guarantees career success, and Amy can’t rely on influential parents to secure her prosperity. For Amy, landing a coveted editorial position upon graduation can only be achieved through Herculean efforts. She studies maniacally and uses her scant spare time to pad her résumé. Her latest achievement, nabbing the editor-in-chief spot at Eli’s literary magazine, leaves Amy feeling optimistic. She’s a shoo-in for Eli’s literary society, Quill & Ink. Soon Amy is whisked away to a clandestine location for a ritualistic initiation. To her surprise, she learns she hasn’t been tapped by the writer’s guild after all, but instead by Rose & Grave. For the first time in the group’s storied history, Rose & Grave has decided to tap, or initiate, women. Rose & Grave is Eli’s most exclusive club, whose members include U.S. presidents and captains of industry. The club’s trust fund hovers in the tens of millions. Amy is smitten with her fellow Rose & Grave initiates and the splendid perks of membership. But the party doesn’t last long. Infighting breaks out in the society and Amy has to prove herself worthy of her powerful new friendships. While the plot is a winner, Peterfreund’s writing is thin and the novel feels best suited for teens. The heroine comes off as insecure and out of her league—which would be charming if Amy would ever reveal some prowess as a leader and unleash her intellect. This is the first in a series; let us hope Peterfreund polishes her prose and educates her heroine before the next installment.
The impressive plot earns this project a B, but the banal dialogue and wimpy heroine downgrade it to a C.Pub Date: July 18, 2006
ISBN: 0-385-34002-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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