Trite, unfunny rehash of contemporary fads already long out of date: an uninspired debut.
So you want to be filthy rich? Thirtyish orthodontist Neil Postit does.
That’s why he chose his girlfriend, personal life coach Marcy Mallowitz, to be his Lifeline for the Filthy Rich game show. Marcy is an avid TV watcher and a virtual encyclopedia of television trivia. The show’s contestants are allowed to call on a friend or loved one if they’re stumped—and when the stakes are as high as $1.75 million, minds have a way of going blank. But the final question is a real poser, and Neil is flummoxed. Which 1970s schlock TV variety show did actress Teri Garr regularly appear on? Was it Donny and Marie, or The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour? Spotlights are circling, the clock is ticking down, Neil is sweating . . . and Marcy gives him the wrong answer. Nasty Neil throws a spectacular tantrum in front of the studio audience, verbally flagellating Marcy and her mother. In retaliation, Marcy takes off the cheap, sort-of-engagement ring he once gave her and flings it in his face. Lo and behold, next day’s papers christen her America’s latest instant celebrity. Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyer and Oprah and Geraldo and Montel are buttering her up right and left, hoping for an exclusive interview. Marcy can’t believe all the attention. Putting everyone on hold, she goes into a brown study, wondering why somebody with a degree in psychology from Barnard ever ended up with a creep like Neil. Is it that men are just mean, or did her mom’s relentless matchmaking cause her to settle for a loser? Now that she’s famous, will she able to find love at last? Predictably, Marcy meets a really nice man, then lands a deal cohosting a morning show, and even gets back at her obnoxious ex in prime time . . . live.
Trite, unfunny rehash of contemporary fads already long out of date: an uninspired debut.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-06-621016-X
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2001
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
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