by Gary Andersen ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 2015
Starts promisingly with the launch of an oil empire but sputters in the dystopian, detail-laden second half.
Oil tycoons in West Texas spend decades planning and building a survivalist underground bunker in Andersen’s debut novel.
Chip Faraday has become well-known in the tech world for his management skills and his talent at spotting trends, but he has just blown a deal in China and is unsure of his next move. He is approached by Jack Barnett Jr., son to an Irish immigrant who became an oil baron, and decides to give him a call. Decades earlier, Jack Barnett Sr. and a Russian immigrant named Robert Barzinsky spent many years in Texas amassing enormous wealth from oil and land acquisitions. As arch conservatives, they despised government bureaucracy and all of its snooping, while the surly Robert wasn’t liked by many Texans: “Most people hated Robert and for good reason, he was not nice to most people.” Their business acumen made them the stuff of legends, but their paranoia led them to build a 3-million-square-foot bunker. Now, with Robert and Jack Sr. deceased, Barnett Jr., who is gravely ill, wants Faraday to join their secretive survivalist group, Project NewLand, Code name: Zeus. When Barnett Jr. dies, the torch is passed to Faraday. Suddenly, the world faces a catastrophe that puts Project NewLand to its ultimate test. Andersen’s novel has elements of historical and dystopian fiction, with flashbacks telling compelling rags-to-riches tales about American immigrants. The backstories are lengthy, however, and when the narrative moves exclusively to the present, there is a great deal of general talk about logistics, management, and career prospects of many different characters, peppered with the occasional jab at liberalism and the interesting addition of an outspoken woman from the Bronx. The latter half of the book starts to sound like an endless business meeting, and when the major crisis finally hits, it’s anticlimactic.
Starts promisingly with the launch of an oil empire but sputters in the dystopian, detail-laden second half.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5144-1739-3
Page Count: 298
Publisher: XlibrisUS
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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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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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