by Joyce Hicks ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 10, 2017
A gentle family drama that’s as pleasant as watching an episode of Gilmore Girls or knitting in bed.
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In Hicks’ (Escape from Assisted Living, 2014) sequel, a senior widow acquaints herself with the pleasures of city life as she grapples with a damning family secret.
Betty Miles, an octogenarian woman who recently ran away from her assisted living apartment in Elkhart, Indiana, moves to Chicago to reignite her joie de vivre. She moves in with her eccentric, metropolitan friend Eleanor Goldman, who makes it her job to brighten Betty’s tastes in clothing, food, culture, and even sex. While the two women gallivant around the city—taking French lessons, speed dating, whiling away hours in posh cafes—Betty’s daughter, Sharon D’Angelo, hunkers down in her newly opened bakery back in Elkhart. Betty’s move to the city strains the mother-daughter relationship. Sharon, though relieved that she no longer needs to worry about her mother keeping busy, is also troubled by Betty’s newfound lust for unconventional senior living. Betty, though enlivened by the energy of urban life, worries that she’s shirking her motherly duty by being so far away from her daughter as she starts a new business. But these discomforts turn out to be the least of the women’s concerns when a pink-haired young lady shows up at Sharon’s door one night to reveal a shocking family secret. Throughout the rest of the novel, Betty—who became privy to the secret in the previous installment—and Sharon attempt to protect each other from the truth. Hicks shows how this endeavor becomes increasingly fraught and difficult as both women encounter more coincidences that encourage a final revelation. Overall, the plot twists are skillfully placed and effectively threaten the tenderness that the author cultivates between Sharon and Betty. The writing is clean and breezy throughout; Hicks tackles weighty themes, including death, deceit, jealousy, and regret, but she does so with a sense of reserve and a cheerful sense of humor—an approach that makes for an indulgent reading experience.
A gentle family drama that’s as pleasant as watching an episode of Gilmore Girls or knitting in bed.Pub Date: Oct. 10, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-692-93519-4
Page Count: 254
Publisher: Encore Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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BOOK REVIEW
by Joyce Hicks
by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
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
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