Altogether, a gripping piece of travelogue fiction spiked with an unnerving amount of psychological tension. Just right for...
A nice married couple from Brighton take a year’s sabbatical to Cuba only to have their not-quite-as-nice neighbor from home turn up there as well.
With this third outing, Barr (Baggage, 2002, etc.) further claims the very little niche that she’s carved out for herself. Her novels take a couple of young British girls with an itch to travel and throws them into situations that (1) they’re hideously unprepared for and (2) bring the unspoken tensions in their friendships into sharp and explosive relief—Alex Garland for girls. The tale this time modifies the template slightly by adding another couple into the equation: young professionals David and Libby. Libby has given up her high-stress but remunerative law position to raise their infant son Charlie, leaving her in the housewife’s trap: glad to be around her child but also uncontrollably bored and bitter. Meantime, David has the travel bug and convinces Libby to come with him on a yearlong trip to Havana. The story’s ticking time bomb is their neighbor Maggie, a pale wraith of sadness with a baby fixation so advanced she buys a set of baby monitors just so she can listen in on conversations in David and Libby’s apartment. Maggie (a stripper who tells everyone that she works for American Express) befriends David and Libby just before they leave for Cuba, imagining herself Libby’s best friend and David’s new lover—and then decides to tag along. Once in Havana, Maggie’s plan is spoiled somewhat by the arrival of her leggy, gorgeous friend Yasmin, who has a good grasp of Maggie’s fragile mental state and what she’s capable of. Barr could have quite easily turned all of this into a simple stalker scenario, but fortunately she resists the impulse (most of the time: the baby-in-distress climax might be a little too yuppies-in-peril for many tastes).
Altogether, a gripping piece of travelogue fiction spiked with an unnerving amount of psychological tension. Just right for the backpacker set.Pub Date: April 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-452-28503-8
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Plume
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
