The author has plenty of fun with the visiting heroines, and Penny’s stay in the mental institution is certainly scary, but...
An imaginative, if uneven, debut novel about 13-year-old Penny Entwhistle and the literary heroines that recuperate at her mother’s bed-and-breakfast.
While the Watergate scandal dominates the nightly news, the more pressing concern for Penny is ousting melodramatic Deirdre, a heroine in Irish mythology, from the house, sending her back to whatever overwrought story she came from. Fantastical intrusions on reality have been part of Penny’s life since birth (in fact, the mystery of her paternity may have more to do with the appearance of the heroines, and occasional hero, than her mother has ever let on), and over the years she has come to expect houseguests with far more serious problems than the average traveler. Emma Bovary, Franny Glass, Scarlett O’Hara, Daisy Buchanan—they all come when things get a bit too harried in their fictional lives and need a break from their own plots. The mechanics of this phenomenon are dealt with early in the novel—it’s a mystery, plain and simple. But now Penny’s getting sick of all the activity, and she wants a little attention for herself. In the woods one evening she meets Celtic King Duncan, looking for Deirdre, and Penny promises to lure Deidre into the woods for him to take back to ancient Ireland. When Penny returns home, the police are there and soon Penny is locked up in the loony bin. Betrayed by her mother (she’s afraid Duncan will hurt Penny), woozy on meds and longing for a more normal life, Penny begins to question her own sanity and everything she’s known to be true. Her only plan is to bet on the impossible—she gets a message out to Duncan and hopes he and his trusty steed can break her out of the asylum.
The author has plenty of fun with the visiting heroines, and Penny’s stay in the mental institution is certainly scary, but the literary and real worlds are disconnected, negating the existential promise of the plot.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4165-4810-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2007
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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