Niederhoffer’s follow-up to the clever A Taxonomy of Barnacles (2005), while gracefully written, never soars above the...
Romantic complications abound when a close-knit group of Yale graduates assemble in Maine for the lavish wedding of two members of their clique.
Darkly attractive, intelligent and complicated, Laura Rosen has reason to dread the nuptials of her golden-girl “best friend” Lila Hayes. After all, she is madly in love with the groom. Laura and Tom McDevon dated before he and Lila did, remaining close until his engagement. His choice of the beautiful but shallow Lila over the considerably more compatible Laura seems like a cop-out, motivated by Lila’s wealth and breeding more than true love. Still, duty (and a little hope) compels Laura to head out to the Hayes family’s coastal Maine compound so she can act as maid of honor for her former college roommate. Once there she is joined by six other members of her Yale class, who have conveniently paired off in monogamous couples, leaving Laura as the single Jew in a sea of WASPs. After an interminable rehearsal dinner all the pals, minus Lila, head out for a drunken frolic on a raft in the bay. The revelers somehow end up unmoored, and after swimming back to shore discover that Tom is missing. Worried that the gifted athlete might have gotten cold feet—or drowned—they all separate into pairs to look for him, choosing partners other than their usual mates. The rest of the night passes with drink-and-drug-fueled excesses, hook-ups and the usual personal revelations, as well as a ghostly sighting. Laura, who never really explains why she has remained friends with this gossipy crew, also fights off the advances of Lila’s younger brother Chip and makes a discovery about Tom that changes everything.
Niederhoffer’s follow-up to the clever A Taxonomy of Barnacles (2005), while gracefully written, never soars above the dislikable characters and the dated depiction of blue-blood customs.Pub Date: July 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-37337-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2008
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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