Neither ironic nor suspenseful, this novel, narrated by Jack mostly in summary flashback, fails to introduce convincing...
An ambitious businessman becomes the target of a Scientology-like organization in Emmons’s second novel (The Loss of Leon Meed, 2005).
On the eve of an assured promotion, Jack Smith gets fired, falls in love with a mysterious woman and is shot by an intruder. Hours later—or is it days?—Jack wakes to find that he has not been shot, but rather tranquilized, and he is now an involuntary patient at a Wellness Center run by the Prescription for Superior Existence, or PASE. Members of PASE include the famous, the powerful, the meek and the mild, each of whom follows PASE’s command to renounce all desire for sex, alcohol, drugs, money and worldly success. PASE is recognized by the IRS as an official religion, with all attendant tax relief. But many nonbelievers—including Jack—call PASE a cult, an elaborate brainwashing hoax. Insisting that he has been kidnapped, Jack demands his release. His disruptive behavior is swiftly quashed by security guards and peer pressure. Eventually he begins to read PASE founder Montgomery Shoale’s bestselling book, The Prescription, which, it is said, was revealed to the author by the one true UR (Ultimate Reality) God. After a few days of vegetarian food, exercise, PASE counseling and a blissful stint in the Synergy Device, Jack becomes PASE’s latest convert. That’s when his troubles really begin: The woman he fell in love with turns out to be Montgomery Shoale’s defiant daughter, who wants Jack to murder her father; a radical group of deprogrammers spirit Jack from the Center to make him their star witness in a class action suit against PASE; and the UR God is calling all PASE followers “home.” Will Jack prevent a worldwide mass suicide of PASE followers—or instigate it?
Neither ironic nor suspenseful, this novel, narrated by Jack mostly in summary flashback, fails to introduce convincing characters, let alone compellingly relay their plight.Pub Date: June 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4165-6105-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2008
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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