by Edward W. Grey ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 22, 2016
An intriguing brief against religion set in a stiff and uninvolving romance.
Sparks fly when a fundamentalist Christian boy and a militant atheist girl fall in love in this debut novel of free-thinking ideas.
Central Washington University freshmen Rick Vitter and Julia Paxter meet cute at a triathlon and then repair to a Starbucks, where their repartee naturally leads to sparring over the existence of God. Rick, a Christian and creationist, is appalled at Julia’s atheism and Darwinism, but she is hot, and he thinks he can coax her to let the Lord into her heart. Julia disdains Rick’s primitive superstitions, but he is hot, and she imagines she can cajole reason into his mind. Their inevitable rapprochement is all on Rick’s side. With the assistance of a persuasive biology professor and atheist manifestos by Richard Dawkins and other authors, Julia bombards Rick with refutations of the argument for intelligent design, Pascal’s wager, and other chestnuts of Christian apologetics. Her attack is harsh—the story of Yahweh ordering Abraham to sacrifice Isaac prompts her to brand the Old Testament God a “sick bastard”—and merciless. Even after Rick retreats to a tame, liberal-ish theism that accepts evolution, the Big Bang theory, and homosexuality, she continues pressing him to reject the existence of the soul and declare Jesus a mere figment of the imagination comparable to the Great Pumpkin. While Rick wrestles with these discombobulating challenges to his belief system, his family tries to push him away from Julia and into the arms of a pretty Christian airhead. While too quick to dismiss the intellectual and cultural legacies of Christianity, this tale offers a case against religious truth claims that is lucid, engaging, and often compelling. The story surrounding it is less successful. Playing out in a succession of outdoor-sports dates, from snowboarding to rock climbing, Rick and Julia’s courtship feels rote, and readers may find themselves skimming past the cumbersome flirtation to get to the ideological debates. Grey’s partisan prose—looking askance at the 6,000-year-old Earth theory, Rick “had achieved his first victory over dogma”—further bogs down the narrative. (The author’s catechistic intent is confirmed by the study questions in an appendix.) The novel’s rationalistic commitments work against its emotional impact: no matter how reasonable a conversion to atheism may be, it just doesn’t make for a resonant love story.
An intriguing brief against religion set in a stiff and uninvolving romance.Pub Date: Dec. 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5390-2650-1
Page Count: 538
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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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APPRECIATIONS
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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