by Everette Lemons ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 12, 2015
A classic story of nostalgia fulfilled, the narrative moves slowly but delivers a number of unexpected revelations.
From Lemons (Jeannie-Centristasis, 2011, etc.) comes a sci-fi novel about one man’s rare opportunity to connect with the love of his life.
Forty-nine-year-old Edward Lewis is a trucker by trade. Although Edward boasts some accomplishments (“a mathematics degree as well as authoring several books”), he seems content with his occupation. Staying in a hotel room when not on the road, he finds himself drawn to a woman named Audra. There’s only one problem: “Audra had been dead for nearly twenty years.” An actress from days past, she seems “cute, cuddly, yet hard, tough, and resourceful” to Edward. After a strange presence visits him in his hotel room, Edward receives a startling proposition. He can travel back to the year 1953 as “a twenty-one-year-old man with the opportunity to meet Audra at her age in that year.” The catch is that his life in the present will never have existed. As it is explained to him, “Your existence will be reset.” Accepting the offer, Edward finds himself in a New York theater with a pocketful of money and a vague sense of who he is. As he and Audra fall in love, questions emerge about Edward’s past. Who is this man who has seemingly fallen from the sky? And then there’s the issue of the smartphone that Edward has materialized with, though he does not fully understand its purpose or why only he can see it. A zany yet familiar conceit, the story moves unhurriedly at first, though things eventually manage to get more curious and surprising. Spotted with clumpy sentiments (one character believes that “love is, and always will be a very selfish act, for it cannot exist without subjective desire”), some philosophical musings could certainly use subtler articulations. Nevertheless, the lingering question of the smartphone helps to maintain intrigue. Portions involving the gadget help to expose modern-day silliness, as when Audra insists Edward put it away during a train ride lest someone think he was “whacked out mentally in some fashion” for ostensibly playing with his palm. Of bigger interest to the reader is finding out what, if anything, it all means.
A classic story of nostalgia fulfilled, the narrative moves slowly but delivers a number of unexpected revelations.Pub Date: Dec. 12, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9969918-0-3
Page Count: 436
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 11, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
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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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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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