Funny, tender, and intelligent escapism.
Two high school friends try to reconnect in this coming-of-age romance.
Senior Jessie Baxter is deeply in love with her best friend, Lee Archer, the quarterback of the high school football team in Newport Falls, on Lake Michigan, in 1983. Lee is likewise attracted to Jessie but cannot tear himself away from manipulative Tina Asta, despite their stormy relationship—and her other conquests. Cajoled by her friend Sarah Griffin, Jessie finds the courage to ask Lee on a date to the final school dance. He says yes but leaves her on the dance floor to argue—and then go home with—Tina. A dejected Jessie hooks up with Billy Walker. Becoming fed up with Tina and needing to escape his abusive stepfather, Lee takes off for Chicago, where he trains as a cop and romances Violetta De Luca, the sister of a close friend. Jessie attends college, becomes a journalist in Milwaukee, and marries Billy. Lee, who had worried that a romance with Jessie would adversely affect their friendship, now realizes that a relationship with Violetta without love will not work. Jessie’s marriage ends in divorce due to Billy’s controlling behavior and alcoholism. Finally a detective, Lee moves back to Newport Falls and Jessie visits for her 10-year class reunion—organized by Tina, who has taken up with Billy but still wants her old high school boyfriend back. Billy, obsessed with his ex-wife, stalks Jessie around town, calling her incessantly and even breaking into her apartment while she is out. This is McKenna’s (Venice in the Moonlight, 2013, etc.) first modern novel after her historical romances and she adroitly captures the angst and snarkiness of high school. At one point, Jessie asserts: “I have to go fail a physics quiz.” The characters are richly complicated, and even Tina reveals the vulnerable girl inside. The only one without nuance is Billy, whose sole purpose seems to be playing the villain when Lee reappears in Jessie’s life. In addition, it is unclear why Jessie remains with Billy throughout college. There are also some anachronisms: The 911 call system was not yet implemented in the Lake Michigan area in 1983, and “waterboarding” was not a household word in the early ’90s. The chapter headings have precise dates but readers do not need them to enjoy this appealing love story.
Funny, tender, and intelligent escapism.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5483-7173-9
Page Count: 314
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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