At times laugh-out-loud funny, occasionally just weird for the sake of weird, but consistently entertaining.
A drug trial participant blogs about his experiences on an experimental medication and questions whether the strangeness in his life is a side-effect or just weirdness as usual.
As a test subject in an experimental drug trial, Gomez Porter is asked to a keep a blog to chronicle any strange experiences, an exercise that quickly alerts him to just how many odd things seem to be happening around him. He soon finds himself wrapped up in a possible murder mystery, stalking a stalker for a woman he thinks he loves (though it might just be the drugs), while his life and the characters in it get ever more absurd—and increasingly dangerous. Parke’s debut novel melds screwball comedy, hipster-style irony and an old-fashioned unreliable narrator into a quirky whodunit that challenges our perceptions about how we think and interact with the world around us. The blog-style entries are unique, providing a firsthand view of events from Gomez’s perspective, a perspective that even the character himself actively joins the reader in doubting. When Gomez goes so far as to admit he edits his posts, we’re left to wonder what got cut, what he isn’t telling us and why, if he is cutting things, he still records his more embarrassing, frightening or unflattering moments. These layers of ambiguity, combined with the novel’s wit and some of its more subtle humor (often overshadowed by its bigger laughs), give the book the distinction of being a work most will want to revisit. The most notable shortcoming is the ending; it isn’t hugely satisfying, and the tone doesn’t fit with the rest of the book. But this is largely forgivable as the real charm of the novel is in the humor of its journey rather than its surprisingly solemn destination.
At times laugh-out-loud funny, occasionally just weird for the sake of weird, but consistently entertaining.Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2011
ISBN: 978-1432752484
Page Count: 189
Publisher: Outskirts
Review Posted Online: July 29, 2011
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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