Too many voices fragment the main story arc of this complex and insightful rendering of contemporary love and family.
A novel explores relationships, romance, and autism spectrum disorders.
On the first day of school at San Francisco’s George Takei High, sophomore Jack Kagen, diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, and his almost 40-year-old divorced mom, Anna, both meet their future loves. Despite Jack’s communication difficulties, he pursues his classmate Ashleigh Allen, who takes him on as a well-intentioned project. Anna has her hands full; as she puts it, “I had a job, two kids, no husband.” While strongly attracted to Jason Armstrong, a police officer, she must also defend herself against ex-husband and District Attorney Alex’s barbed comments and plots to ensure the success of their 5-year-old precocious daughter, Marissa. Jason finds his way into Anna’s heart but so does his teenage son, Trevor, who is also on the autism spectrum. They seem destined to become a family until ex-spouses cause trouble and Anna fears her children won’t be safe unless Jason and Trevor leave their lives. Meanwhile, Jack discovers Ashleigh’s secret and calls on all his abilities and courage to pursue her before she departs. Levin’s (There’s More Than One Way Home, 2017, etc.) tale employs multiple points of view: Jack’s, Anna’s, Ashleigh’s, and Marissa’s. Only Anna’s is first person, guiding the reader to align most closely with her. Her sections have the sexy, romantic vibe that will likely appeal to adult readers: “His shirt was tight across his broad chest,” she notes during her first encounter with Jason. Later, during a time apart, she laments: “I ached to feel the cotton of his uniform sleeves sliding against my skin.” Jack’s teenage point of view is striking for the glimpse it provides into Asperger’s. Words elude Jack, but he persists: “ ‘It’s something like…something like….’ The words were dangling up high in his brain.” Ashleigh’s and Marissa’s points of view are intriguing but divert readers from Anna’s and Jack’s compelling sections.
Too many voices fragment the main story arc of this complex and insightful rendering of contemporary love and family.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9997569-3-5
Page Count: 324
Publisher: Chickadee Prince Books
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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