A YA adventure that overcomes its shortcomings with edgy forest scenes and a remarkable protagonist.
A teenage girl must fend for herself in a forest miles from civilization in this debut young-adult dramatic thriller.
Seventeen-year-old Janet, on her way to a summer cabin at Birch Lake in Alberta, Canada, is forced to land a plane on her own when her bush-pilot father dies from an apparent heart attack. She survives but has a long journey ahead of her if she has any hope of finding help. Armed with a rifle, revolver and compass, she treks through the woods. She befriends a bear cub but is challenged by adverse weather, a diminishing food supply and nature’s predators—most notably, grizzly bears. Stannard’s novel includes wonderfully tense sequences, as when Janet’s cub companion is frightened by something unseen or when Janet stitches up her own wound. The author offsets the tension with welcome moments of serenity, as Janet recognizes the forest’s beauty despite her dire circumstances: “A light breeze moved the leaves and sunlight danced on the forest floor.” The book slows down considerably when Janet reaches a highway (and humans), with more than half of the story remaining. She tells various people of her plight, including family members, but offers no new information and very little insight, and readers may find these sections repetitious. The action picks up again, however, when Janet returns to the forest with some of her father’s friends to point out a prospector’s cabin and, with any luck, lay claim to a gold mine. The novel might have benefitted from a stronger edit to correct grammatical errors and numerous run-on sentences, which readers may sometimes have to read twice for comprehension (“She had a choice she could go down or go back.”). However, such faults can’t overpower the engaging story of a young girl whose will and fortitude are more powerful than the rifle she wields.
A YA adventure that overcomes its shortcomings with edgy forest scenes and a remarkable protagonist.Pub Date: March 13, 2013
ISBN: 978-1480210837
Page Count: 230
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 20, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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