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
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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