An affecting portrayal of a troubled teen’s journey toward redemption despite a facile ending.
In this YA novel for older teens, a hard-partying, drug-using teenage girl in trouble asks for help from her long-estranged grandfather, who’s facing a challenge of his own.
Harper, a spirited 16-year-old girl in Texas, doesn’t remember the last time that her parents praised her or told her they loved her. Her condemnatory father, Greg, the head of an ultraconservative religious private school, has already driven her older brother away; Harper has found personal validation in flaunting her sexuality and uses heroin with her college-age, drug-dealing boyfriend. A confrontation with her father is followed by her boyfriend’s betrayal and the discovery that she’s pregnant. Desperate to escape the mess that her life has become, Harper calls her grandfather Cooper—a novelist and songwriter in Alaska whom she hasn’t seen or talked to in 10 years—and asks for refuge. Cooper’s own life is crumbling after a diagnosis of early Alzheimer’s disease, but he’s determined to give Harper the help and unconditional love that he didn’t give his own daughter, whom he lost to drug addiction years ago. Sobey (The War Blog, 2018) vividly realizes the Alaska setting, and he frankly develops themes involving families torn apart by drug use and the sexual objectification of girls and women. He also offers a strong female protagonist who finds her voice and self-respect. The novel could be read as a just-say-no cautionary tale, as Sobey offers numerous, graphic examples of drug-related tragedy and ugly dysfunction, but its upbeat outcome feels unlikely. Harper and Cooper, however, are dynamic, complex, introspective characters who find, in each other, an accepting family at last. The warmth of their relationship leads a bit too conveniently to other familial reconciliations, new and rekindled romances, and an idealized resolution of Harper’s baby dilemma, but it has a lingering resonance.
An affecting portrayal of a troubled teen’s journey toward redemption despite a facile ending.Pub Date: June 27, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-68433-297-7
Page Count: 382
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Above-average formula fiction, making full display of the author’s strong suits: sense of place, compassion for characters...
Female rivalry is again the main preoccupation of Hannah’s latest Pacific Northwest sob saga (Firefly Lane, 2008, etc.).
At Water’s Edge, the family seat overlooking Hood Canal, Vivi Ann, youngest and prettiest of the Grey sisters and a champion horsewoman, has persuaded embittered patriarch Henry to turn the tumbledown ranch into a Western-style equestrian arena. Eldest sister Winona, a respected lawyer in the nearby village of Oyster Shores, hires taciturn ranch hand Dallas Raintree, a half-Native American. Middle sister Aurora, stay-at-home mother of twins, languishes in a dull marriage. Winona, overweight since adolescence, envies Vivi, whose looks get her everything she wants, especially men. Indeed, Winona’s childhood crush Luke recently proposed to Vivi. Despite Aurora’s urging (her principal role is as sisterly referee), Winona won’t tell Vivi she loves Luke. Yearning for Dallas, Vivi stands up Luke to fall into bed with the enigmatic, tattooed cowboy. Winona snitches to Luke: engagement off. Vivi marries Dallas over Henry’s objections. The love-match triumphs, and Dallas, though scarred by child abuse, is an exemplary father to son Noah. One Christmas Eve, the town floozy is raped and murdered. An eyewitness and forensic evidence incriminate Dallas. Winona refuses to represent him, consigning him to the inept services of a public defender. After a guilty verdict, he’s sentenced to life without parole. A decade later, Winona has reached an uneasy truce with Vivi, who’s still pining for Dallas. Noah is a sullen teen, Aurora a brittle but resigned divorcée. Noah learns about the Seattle Innocence Project. Could modern DNA testing methods exonerate Dallas? Will Aunt Winona redeem herself by reopening the case? The outcome, while predictable, is achieved with more suspense and less sentimental histrionics than usual for Hannah.
Above-average formula fiction, making full display of the author’s strong suits: sense of place, compassion for characters and understanding of family dynamics.Pub Date: Feb. 9, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-312-36410-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2008
Honeyman’s endearing debut is part comic novel, part emotional thriller, and part love story.
A very funny novel about the survivor of a childhood trauma.
At 29, Eleanor Oliphant has built an utterly solitary life that almost works. During the week, she toils in an office—don’t inquire further; in almost eight years no one has—and from Friday to Monday she makes the time go by with pizza and booze. Enlivening this spare existence is a constant inner monologue that is cranky, hilarious, deadpan, and irresistible. Eleanor Oliphant has something to say about everything. Riding the train, she comments on the automated announcements: “I wondered at whom these pearls of wisdom were aimed; some passing extraterrestrial, perhaps, or a yak herder from Ulan Bator who had trekked across the steppes, sailed the North Sea, and found himself on the Glasgow-Edinburgh service with literally no prior experience of mechanized transport to call upon.” Eleanor herself might as well be from Ulan Bator—she’s never had a manicure or a haircut, worn high heels, had anyone visit her apartment, or even had a friend. After a mysterious event in her childhood that left half her face badly scarred, she was raised in foster care, spent her college years in an abusive relationship, and is now, as the title states, perfectly fine. Her extreme social awkwardness has made her the butt of nasty jokes among her colleagues, which don’t seem to bother her much, though one notices she is stockpiling painkillers and becoming increasingly obsessed with an unrealistic crush on a local musician. Eleanor’s life begins to change when Raymond, a goofy guy from the IT department, takes her for a potential friend, not a freak of nature. As if he were luring a feral animal from its hiding place with a bit of cheese, he gradually brings Eleanor out of her shell. Then it turns out that shell was serving a purpose.
Honeyman’s endearing debut is part comic novel, part emotional thriller, and part love story.Pub Date: May 9, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-7352-2068-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
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