Harmless fun for the lads, courtesy of second-timer McNally (Troublemakers, not reviewed).
A flamed-out dot-commer revisits his fairly grubby apprenticeship in delinquency in the tutelage of an older and street-wiser buddy.
The always reliable fascination of the good kid with the possibilities of the hood life knit together anecdotal memoirs set in the seedy southwest corner of Chicago in the late ’70s and early ’80s. Despite a home life that’s spiraling toward the septic tank, eighth-grader Hank Boyd has made it through Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy elementary with pretty good grades, staying out of the principal’s office and avoiding confrontation with the older kids who menace the sidewalk. He is certainly doing better than twice-flunked Ralph, the school hellion. Ralph, who lives with his never-seen mum in a shingle-sided shotgun exception to the buff brick postwar neighborhood flouts authority and has criminal connections, cousins Kenny and Norm. Loosely bonded by Hank’s qualified admiration and Ralph’s pleasure in having a semi-capable assistant, the boys begin to test the tolerance of the community for their brand of largely victimless small crime. Ralph is always proposing stuff that’s a lot scarier than any trouble they actually get into, and Hank has to scramble to talk Ralph out of his bad ideas. Kenny and Norm, who have done time and have cars, provide constant peeks at the possibilities of bigger and more dangerous activities, but the worst trouble they get the younger boys into is a gig wearing Sesame Street drag at a used-car lot. Much time is spent dwelling on Hank’s preadolescent and unrequited lust for the girls in his class and then for a sexy young teacher. And there is a very amusing reminiscence of CB radio in its glory days. In a longish coda, Hank, now a jobless CPA, returns to Chicago to lick his wounds after losing his girlfriend and again falls in with Ralph and the cousins, who now have a hugely successful business cleaning up crime scenes.
Harmless fun for the lads, courtesy of second-timer McNally (Troublemakers, not reviewed).Pub Date: March 2, 2004
ISBN: 0-7432-5555-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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