by J. R. Hamantaschen ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 9, 2015
Perturbing, anomalous stories that will bore into readers’ minds.
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Hamantaschen’s (You Shall Never Know Security, 2011) latest collection of twisted tales once again explores the dark side of human nature.
Rather appropriately, “Vernichtungsschmerz” kick-starts this book of nine outlandish, unnerving stories. In it, a creature in a dream offers teenage Julia a way to escape the pain of a natural death, a perfect example of the author toying with the horror genre. Creatures are often metaphors; in the opening tale, the reason behind a monster’s arrival takes precedence over a human’s natural urge to shudder or flee. Some stories may show signs of genre convention, but they ultimately unravel in gleefully unconventional ways. In “Soon Enough This Will Essentially Be a True Story,” a crazed writer is irate that noted online reviewer Karen hasn’t critiqued his book, yet she may be the one who gets a happy ending. Bryce, meanwhile, in “I’m a Good Person, I Mean Well and I Deserve Better,” makes an unlikely hero, but just because he saves the damsel in distress doesn’t mean he gets the girl. There’s an overwhelming sense of dread among all the characters, be it a general fear of death or, in the case of Miles in “It’s Not Feelings of Anxiety; It’s One, Constant Feeling: Anxiety,” fear that he may not be the family man for Miranda and 18-month-old Craig. At the same time, readers may dread social worker Alex’s learning why his unemployed, constantly pregnant client, Gloria, seems to be well-off in “The Gulf of Responsibility.” While Hamantaschen sometimes subverts garden-variety monsters or villains, a callback to an earlier story in “Oh Abel, Oh Absalom” implies an inexorable, omniscient evil that’s perhaps had its hand in more than just those two tales. Many of the playful titles are a smidge overlong, but the author easily churns out penetrating, somber prose: “So the promise of painless escape went unexplored, so abominable; so abhorrent was that option, as if death would never come unless it was a choice proactively taken.”
Perturbing, anomalous stories that will bore into readers’ minds.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5171-1398-8
Page Count: 308
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Nov. 16, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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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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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