A hopeful and remarkably human tale of one man’s achievements despite humble beginnings.
The second novel in a series that depicts the challenges and triumphs of veterinary school.
Krum’s (An Animal Life: The Beginning, 2014) hilarious sequel plunges readers back into University of Philadelphia School of Veterinary Science with the same cast of characters struggling inside and outside the classroom. This time, readers get a closer look at Mike London, a fourth-year student who has a reputation as both a lady’s man and a superstar vet. Although he’s eager to graduate, his faculty-doctor supervisor, “Special K,” is determined to intimidate him and ruin his chances. Mike’s vast knowledge and natural flair for healing animals begin to falter as Special K mercilessly tests him—and the doctor verbally abuses him each time he fails. Mike’s mistakes take a dire turn when Anna, a former Olympic hopeful who struggles with Lou Gehrig’s disease, discovers that her guide dog, Petunia, has suffered a nearly fatal accident. Mike mishandles the emergency, compromising Petunia’s recovery as well as his hope for a relationship with Anna. As Mike and his fellow veterinary students play out their individual dramas, Krum provides pieces of Mike’s childhood history, showcasing a series of disappointments and abuses at the hands of adults. As this back story unfolds, the author shows how Mike proves to himself and others that Special K’s philosophy—that a chance to cut is also a chance to heal—applies to his own life as well. Krum tells this tale of human and canine struggles with humor and sensitivity, and as a result, it’s both touching and fun. Mike and his friends are well-developed, complex characters whose strengths and weaknesses are clearly displayed throughout the novel. The story is also replete with glossary-defined, insider vet-school references (such as “cone of silence” and “FRoG”) that add texture and verisimilitude, making it an entertaining, substantive read.
A hopeful and remarkably human tale of one man’s achievements despite humble beginnings.Pub Date: Nov. 21, 2014
ISBN: 978-0988488533
Page Count: 310
Publisher: Fluid Design Foundation
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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