Hair-raising, funny and surprising; an indulgent page-turner that might keep you off the water.
A bloody, cinematic romp through backwoods Illinois.
Reading Young’s debut book is a lot like going to the movies. The setup—teenage friends embark on a wild, ill-fated weekend aboard a houseboat—is straight out of a horror flick, and Young’s short, single-location chapters have the feel of movie scenes. Needless to say, fans of thrillers and slasher films will have plenty of fun joining lovebirds Peter and Maggie and company on their eventful trip down the Illinois River. Young’s exposition is particularly well-executed, alternating glimpses of Peter and his two friends’ drunken joyride to the marina with Maggie and a pair of sisters making their own stoned way there. In true horror-movie fashion, each group has some unsettling encounters that fail to make them turn back: The boys cause a ruckus at a wine shop after making moves on some older women, the girls get ogled by some locals at a grocery store, and Maggie’s stop to buy pot reveals she’s been distracting herself with a charming but decidedly creepy dealer while Peter’s been away at college. Once the gang’s out on the water, all hell breaks loose, with characters dying one by one—killed and consumed by mysterious shadowy figures who hunger for human flesh. Readers will require a high tolerance (or taste) for gore if they’re to enjoy the better part of Young’s book. Still, there’s more than just violence here: humor and a sly camp sensibility run through the story as well. Throughout, Young makes a point to note the songs playing at particular moments, “Bad Luck” and “Killing Me Softly” among them. While the mythology underlying the killings, featuring an ancient, proto-Aztec community of cannibals, seems more convoluted than the plot requires, Young nonetheless sustains suspense through the very last page, and his simple, straightforward writing makes for an engaging though not overly taxing read.
Hair-raising, funny and surprising; an indulgent page-turner that might keep you off the water.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2012
ISBN: 978-1477696613
Page Count: 280
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Jan. 25, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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