by Gregory Maguire ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 5, 2010
Certainly not everyone’s cup of tea, but an unfamiliar treat for those who like their comedy laced with a touch of satire.
A fitfully funny and adventurous experiment from the author of Wicked (1995).
This strangely compelling religious farce originated much differently than the fantasy novels that characterize the work of Boston-based novelist Maguire (A Lion Among Men, 2008, etc.). This peculiar novel was originally born as a limited-edition paperback offered by Concord Free Press, the publisher that gives books away for free. Now Harper has given a second lease on life to this familial dramedy about a rebellious daughter, her devoutly religious mother and the bump on the head that turns their small town into a bit of a circus. Maguire’s main prism on small-town life in Thebes, N.Y., is Tabitha Scales, a teenaged girl with a reputation as the town slut. In fact, she appears so regularly in the town jail that the police have let her decorate her own cell. “Thebes was so lame it might as well be amputated,” she muses. Her mother is the long-suffering Leontina Scales, “a middle-aged pillar of the Radical Radiant Pentecostals (Also Republican, with some standards).” But things take a turn when a statue of Our Lady with a Chip on Her Shoulder falls over, bashing Leontina upside the skull and causing her to erupt in foul-mouthed tongues, espousing things like “Am of God, who takes away the sins of the world. So you: shut up.” It seems that everyone in town is concerned with God’s plans. Meanwhile, young, gay choir director Jeremy Carr is dealing with his own struggles, which include mourning a broken love affair with Willem Handelaers. Meanwhile, the Radical Radiants threaten war with the local Catholic Church.
Certainly not everyone’s cup of tea, but an unfamiliar treat for those who like their comedy laced with a touch of satire.Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-06-199779-2
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2010
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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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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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