A convincing glimpse into the challenges of navigating small-town gossip, social pressure, and the inevitable difficulty of...
A young, unmarried, pregnant woman in 1950s Arkansas faces an uphill climb in Keenan’s (In Those First Bright Days of Elvis, 2016) follow-up novel.
It’s 1957, and Elvis is still gyrating his famous hips. While Julie Morgan continues to trade letters with the handsome rock star, her life in El Dorado has become increasingly different…and difficult. Following the death of one friend and the betrayal of another, Julie struggles to reconcile her feelings toward the in crowd. To further complicate matters, she has a love-hate relationship with her half sister and look-alike, Carmen. But Julie’s social struggles all become secondary when she realizes she’s pregnant. She can’t continue to reside in El Dorado, pregnant and unmarried. She won’t settle for a marriage of convenience to the baby’s father, and her mother wants her to move to a home for unwed mothers. To avoid suspicion, Carmen delivers a solution straight out of The Parent Trap. Julie heads to the misleadingly named Happiness House to deliver her baby while Carmen assumes Julie’s identity. Neither Carmen nor Julie is prepared for the difficulties. While Carmen struggles to convince Julie’s family and friends that she hasn’t changed, Julie can’t decide whether she will keep her baby or give it up for adoption. Keenan’s second Days of Elvis novel continues Julie’s coming-of-age story. It’s satisfying to watch her begin to realize her own independent thoughts and feelings and even experience early stirrings of feminism. The author touches on potentially difficult issues—divorce, infidelity, pregnancy, and abortion—and does an admirable job portraying the often inconceivable repercussions of now commonplace experiences in a small, Southern town in the ’50s. Carmen and Julie take turns narrating, and the dialogue toggles smoothly between their two distinct voices. It’s interesting to watch Carmen navigate the complicated social hierarchy in El Dorado, but Julie’s story truly drives the narrative.
A convincing glimpse into the challenges of navigating small-town gossip, social pressure, and the inevitable difficulty of becoming an adult.Pub Date: March 25, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-68313-105-2
Page Count: 242
Publisher: Pen-L Publishing
Review Posted Online: June 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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