by Jasen Emmons ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1995
Emmons achieves a sweet, laid-back tone in this debut novel, but he can't overcome the ennui inherent in yet another story of a member of Generation X who can't decide what to do with his life. Sapping matters further is the fact that Dennis McCance's next move is clear when the novel opens. After playing drums in a country and western band called Cowboy Angst in college, he gave law school a try. He didn't like it much, and now he's headed home to Montana for the summer to tell his parents that he's dropped out. In the meantime, Montana Wildhack (nÇe Janey Bowman), the lead singer for Cowboy Angst, wants McCance to join her in Austin, Tex., and start a band. The two have always been close friends, but it's obvious that there could be something more between them. The question is: What on earth is holding McCance back? He makes some vague references to the instability of the music business (Wildhack's father has made her solemnly swear not to wait tables after she turns 30); but since he loves his drums and Wildhack and little else, his indecision feels forced. Some red herrings are thrown into the mix: Susan Hall, a woman McCance has seen on and off when he's home in Montana, is back in town; and the tense relationship between him and his slightly weird deputy sheriff brother shakes things up a little. But there is always the sense that Emmons is dragging his feet. Too many anecdotes—including a tasteless one in which McCance recounts how he and a high school friend amused themselves on the band bus by playing ``dick tag, in which you had to touch people with your member without getting caught''—slow things down, and a final dramatic twist adds little except length. Emmons has a deft, casual delivery, and his hero's voice is seamless, but ultimately these feel wasted on a lackluster story.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1995
ISBN: 1-56947-021-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Soho
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1994
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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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