Though her parents deplore Ruth's ``bohemian'' lifestyle, stage-struck Patty dearly loves her glamorous actress aunt; the two are true friends and confidantes. Then Ruth arrives at Patty's home in Scarsdale with a devastating problem: the complications of diabetes may require amputation of a leg. More than half the book involves the operations, disappointments, and family trauma as Ruth loses one and then the other leg; meanwhile, her husband brutally announces by phone from L.A. that he's left Ruth for her best friend, and Patty plays a minor role in a high-school production of Our Town. Later, Ruth begins her rehabilitation, and Patty gets to play Juliet and wonders whether she's really cut out to be an actress. Much of the emotional action here turns on the family dynamics: Mom obediently gave up a career as a pianist to become a stockbroker; Ruth is a former rebel who denigrates her own success (just soaps and ads); and now doctor Dad opposes Patty's ambition. The parallels are worth exploring; unfortunately, Rosofsky spends too much time on realistic but repetitious dialogue and explanation of Ruth's adult problems, depicts Patty's parents as almost one-dimensionally narrow-minded and authoritarian, skimps on Patty's relationship with friend Helen, whose betrayal is crucial to her theme, and—near the end— thrusts a new career goal (writing) on Patty without really motivating it. There's much of value here, but it hasn't been developed to good advantage. (Fiction. 12-16)
Pub Date: May 15, 1991
ISBN: 0-06-025087-9
Page Count: 215
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1991
Heartbreaking, historical, and a little bit hopeful.
January 1945: as Russians advance through East Prussia, four teens’ lives converge in hopes of escape.
Returning to the successful formula of her highly lauded debut, Between Shades of Gray (2011), Sepetys combines research (described in extensive backmatter) with well-crafted fiction to bring to life another little-known story: the sinking (from Soviet torpedoes) of the German ship Wilhelm Gustloff. Told in four alternating voices—Lithuanian nurse Joana, Polish Emilia, Prussian forger Florian, and German soldier Alfred—with often contemporary cadences, this stints on neither history nor fiction. The three sympathetic refugees and their motley companions (especially an orphaned boy and an elderly shoemaker) make it clear that while the Gustloff was a German ship full of German civilians and soldiers during World War II, its sinking was still a tragedy. Only Alfred, stationed on the Gustloff, lacks sympathy; almost a caricature, he is self-delusional, unlikable, a Hitler worshiper. As a vehicle for exposition, however, and a reminder of Germany’s role in the war, he serves an invaluable purpose that almost makes up for the mustache-twirling quality of his petty villainy. The inevitability of the ending (including the loss of several characters) doesn’t change its poignancy, and the short chapters and slowly revealed back stories for each character guarantee the pages keep turning.
Heartbreaking, historical, and a little bit hopeful. (author’s note, research and sources, maps) (Historical fiction. 12-16)Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-399-16030-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015
PROFILES
The wish-fulfilling title and sun-washed, catalog-beautiful teens on the cover will be enticing for girls looking for a...
Han’s leisurely paced, somewhat somber narrative revisits several beach-house summers in flashback through the eyes of now 15-year-old Isabel, known to all as Belly.
Belly measures her growing self by these summers and by her lifelong relationship with the older boys, her brother and her mother’s best friend’s two sons. Belly’s dawning awareness of her sexuality and that of the boys is a strong theme, as is the sense of summer as a separate and reflective time and place: Readers get glimpses of kisses on the beach, her best friend’s flirtations during one summer’s visit, a first date. In the background the two mothers renew their friendship each year, and Lauren, Belly’s mother, provides support for her friend—if not, unfortunately, for the children—in Susannah’s losing battle with breast cancer. Besides the mostly off-stage issue of a parent’s severe illness there’s not much here to challenge most readers—driving, beer-drinking, divorce, a moment of surprise at the mothers smoking medicinal pot together.
The wish-fulfilling title and sun-washed, catalog-beautiful teens on the cover will be enticing for girls looking for a diversion. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: May 5, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4169-6823-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2009
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