A well-developed and enchanting odyssey involving an apparition who ends up aiding the living.
Helping a spirit to find peace allows a woman to put to rest some of the ghosts in her own life in this debut novel.
Saaina’s fetching protagonist is Jaya, an overworked medical student and researcher in Nashville. Jaya had fled to the United States from her native India to escape her life of privilege and her suffocating family. She’s content with her busy lifestyle, although she develops a yearning for a place of her own. Jaya is drawn to a quaint fixer-upper in the suburbs, which she falls in love with. There is only one problem she hadn’t expected: It’s haunted. One night, she hears noises in a vacant room upstairs, and there, she discovers the diary of Tara, the house’s previous resident. Tara died of cancer, and the diary contains her bucket list, which she had been unable to complete. So Jaya decides to finish the list for Tara to help her spirit move on, with the support of the woman’s old neighbor Leo. At first, the tasks are simple, such as dating a man in uniform and singing karaoke. But she balks when she spots the item “solve a cold case.” In the midst of this crusade, Jaya rushes home to India when her beloved grandmother becomes ill. She also continues working on Tara’s list without realizing that the ghost has been guiding and assisting her all along. The most enjoyable part of Saaina’s novel is watching Jaya evolve from a somewhat self-involved woman to one who goes out of her way to help a perfect (albeit, dead) stranger. While doing so, Jaya gets reconnected to her extended family, which she had tried to leave behind. She even considers the previously unlikely possibility of getting married—to a childhood friend. Saaina, who’s also a native of India, successfully unveils that nation’s upper-caste society, a world unknown to many readers. The author skillfully weaves together seemingly disparate elements—Tara’s list, Jaya’s volunteer cancer research, an Indian cold case, and a charred psychiatric hospital—into a compelling narrative. Jaya’s selfless act results in her ultimately enjoying a fuller life.
A well-developed and enchanting odyssey involving an apparition who ends up aiding the living.Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5486-5862-5
Page Count: 362
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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