Often powerful and compelling, but weakened by an overabundance of darkness and violence.
A twisted love affair forever changes the path of a bright young woman.
Sarah Clark is a precocious child. She comes from an Australian family where academic excellence is the norm and failure is unacceptable. When a dynamic teacher named Daniel Carr seduces 14-year-old Sarah, she is thrilled to enter his perverse world and gain his attention. Daniel becomes a father figure to Sarah—an older man to please and adore. Her sexual awakening is powerful, and she becomes addicted to Daniel’s touch. Maguire does her best to convince the reader that Sarah and Daniel have a relationship. But these initial sexual encounters are nothing short of molestation—their relationship is far from erotic. Daniel leaves Sarah’s school district, mysteriously, and the damage to Sarah is irreparable. This once-promising young scholar is ruined; she feels abandoned and attempts to self-destruct by way of unprotected sex, binge-drinking and drug use. As a college student, Sarah’s existence involves waitressing at a seedy steak house and luring strangers to her filthy apartment. Despite her numerous trysts, she remains empty—constantly longing for the violence and degradation she received at the hands of her teacher. For Sarah, love and pain are inexorably linked. When Daniel and Sarah meet again, it seems they deserve to beat each other senseless, for they are despicable characters. Maguire aims high in her debut novel, attempting to craft a tragic romance in the spirit of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre (she tosses in allusions to the classics). But while her writing manages to convey urgency, she doesn’t deliver penetrating personalities.
Often powerful and compelling, but weakened by an overabundance of darkness and violence.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-112216-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Perennial/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2006
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
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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