If books were food, Berg's latest (The Pull of the Moon, 1996; Range of Motion, 1995; etc.) might be a Twinkie: the sweet tale of a precocious 13-year-old girl who falls in love with- -and loses—an older man. Katie has had some hard knocks lately: Her mother recently died; her older sister Diane has gone off (pregnant) to Mexico to marry Dickie; and Katie has had to move from Texas to Missouri, where not only does she know nobody, but the two kids across the street are incorrigibly mean. Things quickly start looking rosier, though, as Ginger, the nice young woman who housekeeps for Katie and her dad, starts thinking that dad is more than just nice—even if he hardly ever smiles, which is only because he's an Army colonel. At school, Katie befriends the glamorous Taylor Sinn (a model), who turns out to be too fast with boys (Katie hates that) and a shoplifter. Katie has better luck with wallflower Cynthia O'Connell, who's slow at the start but steadily gains in true depth—and who has a colorful Italian grandmother who's dying slowly but just loves Katie. The big test, though, is when Katie falls in love with Jimmy, the handsome, sensitive—and married—Mobile station attendant ten years her senior who gives her a change of clothes after an ice-skating accident. There's real affection between the two, but the actual love is one-sided, and when Katie at last finds this out she's demolished enough to decide ``Well, I do not need love, I am just going to be a poet.'' Good enough, but if Katie still says of Taylor's artist mother that she ``does gigantic paintings that you don't know what is,'' she may have to improve her language skills until she's at least 14. A pleasant between-meals snack of the kids-are-great genre: teary, funny, Hallmarkian wise, its true space waiting among the YAs. (Author tour)
Pub Date: April 1, 1997
ISBN: 0-679-44943-4
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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