A journey that’s uniquely informative, though hampered at times by overbearing prose.
Debut author Ripley presents a sci-fi thriller about apparently friendly visitors from another planet.
Indian-American teenager Rohini Haakonsen is in the United Nations headquarters in New York City as part of the Youth Assembly program, when a group of robed strangers appear—space aliens who assure the audience that they come in peace. They insist on being called the “Elders,” and they offer assistance to an Earth that’s in environmental peril, facing rising sea levels. They request that a number of young people be sent to the Elders’ unnamed world to study and learn their ways. Obviously, the sudden appearance of aliens at the U.N. is a shocking event, and not everyone trusts the Elders’ motives. Rohini, for instance, has suspicions about the whole affair, but she winds up being handpicked by the Elders (with approval from the president of the United States) to be one of Earth’s ambassadors. Rohini won’t go unprepared, however, as a government agent named Sinéad McGowan, alias “Jane Smith,” trains her for a few months before she’s scheduled to leave the planet, so that she can stand up to any sort of confrontation. But after an incident in Washington, D.C., leads to tragedy, Sinéad and Rohini flee to China to plan their next move, where more about the Elders is revealed. There, Rohini, along with the reader, also learns much about Chinese history and culture, including about the 13th-century painter Chen Rong and the dongtian fudi system of nature preserves. This information is, however, not always woven seamlessly into the story; for example, the narration heavy-handedly notes that Rohini “had found in the past that learning how people from other cultures viewed life often gave her deeper insight and more appreciation for her own.” There are some occasionally bland descriptions, and some of the obstacles that Rohini runs into along the way, such as conniving FBI Special Agent in Charge Edward R. Rooney, fizzle more quickly than they should. Still, the narrative takes readers to unusual places in a whirlwind of activity that’s difficult to predict.
A journey that’s uniquely informative, though hampered at times by overbearing prose.Pub Date: Feb. 21, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-939548-90-0
Page Count: 294
Publisher: Calumet Editions
Review Posted Online: April 25, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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