Love him or hate him, Steven weighs his options with a unique and strong voice as he searches for the value of commitment in...
In Seliger’s quirky debut, a 20-something who’s reluctant to propose to his girlfriend brings her to Seattle to visit old friends before he makes his final decision.
Rather than boarding the plane and seeing what happens, Steven is standing quietly in the security line thinking deep thoughts: “there is no better setting for revelation than a trip, ideally one fraught with meaning.” His internal monologue is, at times, overly ponderous. It’s also funny. Steven’s influences range from economist Dan Ariely to comedian Chris Rock as he tries to explain why he’s still carrying Anna’s ring around in a box rather than giving it to her; lists, charts, and footnotes illustrate his reasons. Even the auto-filled answers he finds in Google’s search results seem to offer insights on the differences between men and women when it comes to love (e.g., “why won’t she swallow” vs. “why won’t he marry me”). Some of his observations are eloquent—“so many old people become bitter over time, like over-brewed cups of tea”—while others are crude: “I like forward girls. And wet ones.” Steven tries consulting his old college buddies and casual partners about his dilemma, but all they do is become mirrors, showing him his own flaws. His friend Cooper, for instance, is too much of a party animal to have a mature opinion about marriage, and when Steven is tempted by other women in bars, he finds he’s not much better than Cooper. While Steven considers himself to be an academic, Anna more aptly describes him as being “in his late twenties, going on 16.” He’s so self-absorbed that Anna’s character is often more of an abstract idea than a living, breathing woman. It takes a cancer scare to show that Steven’s fear of adulthood isn’t limited to his fear of commitment. He barely acknowledges that his lab results might bring bad news as he stays out all night while Anna sleeps. He also fails to consider that Anna’s commitment to him isn’t guaranteed.
Love him or hate him, Steven weighs his options with a unique and strong voice as he searches for the value of commitment in a hookup culture.Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2014
ISBN: 978-1495242212
Page Count: 242
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 28, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
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
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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