Picoult's mediocre third novel (after Harvesting the Heart, 1993) features dysfunctional parents, an abusive spouse, romantic anthropological visits to Africa, and a healing encounter with sensitive Native Americans. Like the layers of earth she sifts through to find a piece of bone, protagonist Cassie Barrett, a noted anthropologist teaching at UCLA, must dig deep into her own past to understand just what happened before she lost her memory due to a blow on the head. Found wandering on Sunset Boulevard by Will Flying Horse, a recent LAPD recruit and South Dakota native who has fled life on the reservation, Cassie soon recalls her profession but has to be reminded by Alex Rivers, Hollywood's hottest property, that she's his wife. Alex, an Oscar nominee and soon-to-be winner, is stunningly handsome, talented, and messed-up—something Cassie has also forgotten. Cassie loves Alex passionately, she is sure of that, but both of them are haunted by horrible childhoods, which have made Cassie a lifelong rescuer and Alex a perpetual victim. When Cassie finally remembers why she lost her memory (Alex beat her savagely), she flees to South Dakota, where she imposes on Will's grandparents while she finds herself and awaits the baby she now remembers she is expecting. There, Cassie recalls her alcoholic parents, a murdered childhood friend, her romantic meeting with Alex on location in Africa, their exciting life together, and her continuing great love for her husband. She goes back to him after the baby is born, but Alex can't change, and Cassie can: She must hurt him so he can heal. A pretentious romance for the '90s that combines up-to-the- minute neuroses and Tinseltown glitz in a formula plot that ought to be foolproof but somehow isn't, despite patches of good writing. (Literary Guild selection)
Pub Date: March 23, 1995
ISBN: 0-399-14040-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1995
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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