by Eddie Lewis ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1995
A woozy debut tale of one man's midlife crisis. The circumstances here are so clichÇd that initially this has the flavor of a satire: Ray and his wife lost their first child years ago. Ray is having an affair (his first) with a woman from work named Julia. Ray leaves his wife, Betsy, and his two young sons abruptly at the outset (he doesn't know what he wants, just that he is vaguely unhappy). The boys cry and don't want him to go. When Ray finally visits a therapist and starts talking, he is struck by ``how much this story was like a tawdry romance novel.'' That's true, except for the male protagonist and the not particularly happy ending. A lot of the talk about sex reads like male fantasy, or at least insensitivity. The day that Ray tells his wife that he is leaving, she performs oral sex on him for the first time (after nine years of marriage), then Ray recalls how she had once confessed to him that she had never had an orgasm, and today he still doesn't know whether she ever has. Similarly, after pages and pages of Ray and Julia living together and vacationing together and frolicking, the reader learns that ``Julia did not come when they made love, she rarely had.'' Presumably, just pleasing Ray was enough. There is something buried here about men and their inability to express themselves, but this book is afflicted by that same problem. Ray's life is examined earnestly, but myriad observations like ``He had always confused doing the right thing with causing no pain'' only amount to navel-gazing. At the close of the novel, it is not much clearer why Ray—who keeps a stiff upper lip—has left his wife or what might possibly satisfy him. For the Iron John crowd only.
Pub Date: March 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-671-88762-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1995
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
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
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