by Gitty Daneshvari ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 25, 2009
Though a bit inconsistent, Daneshvari has great comic timing. She’s an author to watch.
Channeling Fay Weldon’s classic The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, this debut novel concerns an ugly girl’s transformation and its menacing consequences.
The opening pages of Anna Norton’s saga will have the reader gasping (not quite in sympathy) at her sad, dysfunctional life. From childhood to college, Anna has been ostracized and alone, a social misfit in search of a fairy godmother. None exist in Ohio, so she is left as is: fat, with cystic acne, black stretch pants, dandruff and dried food in the corners of her mouth. After graduating with a degree in molecular biology, she moves to New York, where she finds her FG (fairy godmother) in the form of Janice, a successful caterer who hires Anna as an assistant. FG Janice sends Anna walking all over the city in search of obscure ingredients; takes her to the Gap, so that Anna can start dressing in simple, elegant black; and ensures that all of Anna’s neighborhood takeaway establishments refuse to serve her food. Thanks to diet, exercise and a trip to the dermatologist, Anna is, if not suddenly Audrey Hepburn, at least an attractive, healthy young woman, stylishly attired. As karmic reward, she meets Ben Reynolds and is dumbstruck by his astounding male beauty. Ben, bored by shallow models, falls for Anna, and her life becomes perfect—except for all those women flirting with Ben every moment of the day. Eaten up by 22 years of insecurities, Anna embarks on The Makedown, in which Ben will become a little less desirable and remain with Anna forever. She dresses him in flannel, puts Nair in his shampoo, convinces him that a Skör bar is a new health snack, cancels his gym membership and has him grow a shaggy beard. In the process, Ben’s ego is destroyed and it is up to Ann to reverse the makedown, even if it ends their relationship.
Though a bit inconsistent, Daneshvari has great comic timing. She’s an author to watch.Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-446-69988-4
Page Count: 326
Publisher: 5 Spot/Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2008
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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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