Puerto Ricanborn first-novelist Santiago (the memoir When I Was Puerto Rican, 1993) gives a contemporary twist to the immigrant experience as she limns the plight of a woman escaping an abusive man to pursue her dreams. AmÇrica Gonzalez was an unmarried teenage mother, as her own mother, Ester, was before her, so when 14-year-old daughter Rosalinda runs away with her boyfriend, AmÇrica fears the worst. A housekeeper at a hotel in Puerto Rico, she cleans up after rich guests, dreaming of making a better life for Rosalinda. Her daughter soon comes home, and though she is not pregnant, she and AmÇrica fight constantly—fights exacerbated by Correa, Rosalinda's irresponsible father, who insists on interfering in the way AmÇrica raises their daughter. A married man with a family, Correa continues to see AmÇrica, whom he insists is his true love. But AmÇrica's love for Correa has been destroyed by his increasingly violent abuse, assaults triggered by alcohol and jealousy. When the Leveretts, an American family vacationing at the hotel, offer AmÇrica a job in New York taking care of their two children, she accepts and begins planning her journey without telling Correa. Once there, she finds life in the Westchester household not only lonely but less than perfect: The Leveretts work long hours, often quarrel, and seem unable to enjoy their home or their children. AmÇrica begins making plans to bring Rosalinda to the States, but Correa, who's discovered his lover's whereabouts, calls to say he's coming to take her back. In a nail-biting climax, AmÇrica finally frees herself from Correa and is at last able to assert her ``right to live life as she chooses.'' Santiago's acute eye and feel for the telling detail make this a work of fine reportage, as well as an engrossing if often somber tale with a quiet but always tenacious heroine. ($55,000 ad/promo; author tour)
Pub Date: May 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-06-017279-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1996
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
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