Speculative idealism grounded by its real-world setting; a likable, modern-day parable.
A debut novel sees a girl coming to terms with the defining facial scar that has ruined her standing at school.
Eighth-grader Karina Morgan has a terrible scar on her forehead, the consequence of a childhood accident she can’t remember. Karina is smart, but the scar has made her life difficult. It creates a first impression that most people can’t move past. The cool girls at school bully her. The boy she’s into thinks she’s a freak. Karina has only one real friend, Mary Blair, and is resigned to being an outsider. One day, however, down by the creek, she discovers a secret cave fashioned just for her. She meets an old man—a “bleached-out, hippie Santa Claus”—who opens her mind to the concept of reincarnation. All of a sudden, Karina finds she can see people’s souls: the underlying character that is the product of past lives and which exists now in either harmony or conflict with each present life. Her new insights prove valuable. She sees how Mary is suffering from the residual angst of her previous life. Karina understands finally why her brothers are always fighting. She can help them; she can cause them to reconcile. But can she search through her own soul’s past? Can she face her own scars and heal herself? The author leads with a quote from Lewis Carroll, but while Karina’s experiences are in a measure fantastical, they lack the whimsy of Alice’s adventures. This may preclude Mann’s novel from becoming beloved, yet it also gives it a relevance that Carroll never had. Middle-grade and YA readers should identify with Karina, not just because of her scar and its consequences, but also for the maturity she shows and her fortitude in dealing with family and school life. In speech and action, all of the author’s characters seem drawn from life. The prose, though at times digressive, is clear. The story develops quickly enough and sufficiently to hold interest. One problem is that Karina’s journey (vis-à-vis reincarnation) strays somewhat from a plot-driven narrative and into more philosophical realms—almost to the point of proselytizing. Whether this strengthens or weakens the book, though, is perhaps a matter of taste. Regardless, Karina proves a memorable reading companion.
Speculative idealism grounded by its real-world setting; a likable, modern-day parable.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-974267-39-2
Page Count: 204
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 3, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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