Will appeal to Hardy’s gay male following, though it remains to be seen whether the author can cross over and attract...
The fourth installment in a series that began with the startlingly original B-Boy Blues (1994): but Hardy stumbles when he treads into E. Lynn Harris terrain.
After Raheim “Pooquie” Rivers heads to Hollywood to shoot his first film, his partner of 18 months, Mitchell “Little Bit” Crawford, finds himself fending off a string of suitors. Each one is more “phyne” than the last, and a handsome jazz singer named Montgomery Simms just won’t take no for an answer. Hardy is clearly fascinated by the problem of maintaining monogamy in a long-term relationship (the third title in the series, The Day Eazy-E Died, 2001, also dealt with infidelity), so it’s no surprise that Mitchell finally gives in to temptation, but it’s mystifying that the author fails to explore his reasons for straying, or its repercussions. Hardy’s greatest strength has always been chronicling the lives of what he calls “same-gender-loving men,” and he adds subtle shading to the portrait here, revealing how a group of friends functions as a family. The tenderness his characters show for each other, even when disguised by catty comments, is often touching. What’s new, and weaker, is the bisexual plot twist: Mitchell is shocked to learn that Montgomery is equally attracted to men and women. While Harris delves deeply into multifaceted sexuality in his fiction, Hardy skims the surface, handling the topic (like most of those he tackles) with a barely disguised lecture. This time, the professor seems uninterested in the topic and clearly hasn’t prepared for class. The simplistic discussion of “biphobia” in the gay community, tacked on at the end, may well leave readers who have more than a passing interest in the subject feeling largely unsatisfied.
Will appeal to Hardy’s gay male following, though it remains to be seen whether the author can cross over and attract Harris’s larger audience.Pub Date: June 4, 2002
ISBN: 0-06-621248-0
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2002
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
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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