Strives for—and sometimes achieves—complexities that surpass superficial teenage drama.
Trust is broken and intrigues are explored in this coming-of-age novel about a young man.
Handsome and inquisitive, 18-year-old TJ has connected with Maggie, a young girl who lives nearby for the summer, and they’re in the process of developing a romantic relationship. But this girl is different. Naïve and sheltered, she interests TJ and pushes him to be more caring and concerned. However, the care and concern don’t last long. After falling out with his visiting uncle—TJ discovers that the man he once looked up to has bendable morals and a propensity to act out of selfishness and temptation—TJ then follows his uncle’s path, allowing himself to be seduced and rattled away from his original decision to be a good boyfriend, a stable friend, and an honest human. While the story will resonate with young people exploring romantic relationships, the characters sometimes fall into high school stereotypes. For example, TJ is a tall, lean, athletic boy with tan skin and striking good looks. Girlfriend Maggie describes herself as “plain Jane,” while the other girls who lure TJ are usually exotic and sexy. Readers may feel less compelled to relate to the characters when they fit stereotypes and high school clichés. Nevertheless, several small moments illustrate these characters as real people: Maggie, who wants to go to dentistry school, eventually questions TJ’s sincerity, showing her development from naiveté to awareness while “trying to reconcile the TJ she’d heard about from the other girls at school and the TJ she’d been dating this summer [who] was driving her crazy.” TJ, meanwhile, struggles with inner turmoil when he learns of secretive decisions made by his uncle—ones that could change TJ’s future. These moments of doubt and inner conflict help bring the characters to life while establishing genuine concern for their outcomes. Though the book features teenage characters, the detached third-person narrative voice feels strongly adult—“she held onto TJ’s erection as if she wanted to take it home with her as a souvenir”—and retrospective, like a grown-up looking back. Perhaps, then, adult readers interested in revisiting their teenage years will make an appropriate audience.
Strives for—and sometimes achieves—complexities that surpass superficial teenage drama.Pub Date: Jan. 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5192-3225-0
Page Count: 418
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 23, 2015
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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