A sweet, well-paced time-travel story about a teenager dealing with everyday challenges.
In Lilo’s (The Mermaid Upstairs, 2018, etc.) second novel, a teenage girl and her family relive the same weekday.
Fifteen-year-old Catelyn starts her day like any other, taking care of her grandmother, Nana, who’s partially paralyzed from a stroke and can only say “Fee ne ne.” Her twin brother, Camden, is always getting into mischief, and their mom, Carla, an aspiring writer, struggles to pay the bills with a series of temp jobs. At school, Catelyn wistfully remembers how her friendship with her former best pal, Olivia, ended; then Catelyn gets drenched when a minor fire occurs. Soon, she learns that someone is threatening to expose a friend’s secret, and on her way home, she accidentally rips her jeans, which she can’t afford to replace. A mishap befalls Nana’s videotape of her favorite baseball game, and sparks fly when Catelyn meets Ben, the president of the high school video editing club, who helps her with the tape. But the day gets worse when Carla has a meltdown over a manuscript rejection and a tragic accident befalls someone that Catelyn knows. Before bed, Nana insists that the family listen to a special record, and they all feel better. The family members wake up the next day and find that everything is exactly the same as the day before, like in the movie Groundhog Day. The classroom fire happens again, as do the same conversations. However, Catelyn and her family can’t help making some changes to improve things this time around. Overall, this book is a charming look at the world of a teenage girl. Catelyn is a great character whose worries about friendships and boys ring true. She also has a special but frustrating relationship with her Nana. Other family members are also compelling characters; Camden, for instance, is a loose cannon who’s surprisingly kindhearted, and their mom just wants to follow her dream of becoming a published author. The plot device of time travel helps with the overall characterization, as everyone in the family experiences it, not just Catelyn. Readers will be excited to find out how events will unfold.
A sweet, well-paced time-travel story about a teenager dealing with everyday challenges.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-79515-174-0
Page Count: 214
Publisher: Time Tunnel Media
Review Posted Online: March 22, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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
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