Memorable characters, setting, and mystery elevate this story of adolescent angst.
A young woman overcomes adversity while uncovering family secrets in this YA novel.
Eleven-year-old Dolores “Dottie” Bouchard is not thrilled to be stuck spending her summer with her bullying cousin, Tommy Swanson. Even discounting their gender and one-year age differences, the cousins could not be less alike. But with her father recovering from a serious injury and her mom working full-time during his recovery, Dottie is spending her days at Aunt Joanie’s in-home day care. Dottie is determined to become an investigative reporter; Tommy can barely read. But when Tommy disappears a short time later and the family seems quick to forget his very existence, Dottie chalks it up to another Bouchard mystery, like the reasons behind her veteran grandfather’s PTSD and the way relatives can go years without speaking. Her grandmother’s death—and the revelation of her late-in-life Mary Kay career—enables Dottie to become the first member of her family to attend college. As a freshman, Dottie (now called Lores) is determined to find out more about her grandfather’s World War II service, but her research draws her back into the questions surrounding Tommy’s disappearance. With the support of her boyfriend, Leo, Lores uses her investigative skills to uncover the truth, which is not nearly as shocking as she had feared. What starts out as a seemingly predictable story about an intelligent, awkward adolescent turns into an engrossing mystery that is impossible to put down. In the course of her research, Lores evolves into a self-confident young woman who not only no longer cares about the mole on her face, but also forges a well-defined career path. Engaging secondary characters—Leo, Vietnam veteran Max, the protagonist’s bikers-turned–teenage parents, Ray and Perry, and goodhearted but gruff Aunt Joanie—add considerable depth to Wenner’s (Painting the Lake, 2016) tale. Subtly drawn parallels between the ongoing war in Vietnam and the effects of World War II on her grandfather further enrich the narrative, which should appeal to both YA and adult audiences.
Memorable characters, setting, and mystery elevate this story of adolescent angst.Pub Date: Jan. 20, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5424-7808-3
Page Count: 316
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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