This overly long novel’s mangled phrasing impedes the reading process.
Kollenborn’s debut novel explores life in the Manzanar Japanese internment camp during World War II, focusing on two teenage boys struggling with their identities as first-generation Americans.
Jim and Goro, or Russell as he prefers to be called, are ordinary teenagers growing up on Bainbridge Island, near Seattle, WA. They don’t especially like each other, but after Pearl Harbor, their families are thrown together for the duration of the war at Manzanar, one of the Japanese internment camps. They feel rejected by America and unsure of their places in the world. As they navigate the difficulties of camp life—gangs, informers, racism, illness, defeated and dispirited parents—they also go to dances, meet girls and learn to fight. Growing up, each responds differently to the challenge of forging an American identity. Kollenborn shows she’s done her research; Manzanar’s privations are fully rendered as the camp slowly transforms as the prisoners plant gardens, acquire a radio here or a new dress there, start a newspaper and organize themselves. She avoids easy moralizing while showing the injustice of the camps. Bizarre use of language, however, obscures the book’s merits. Readers will stumble again and again, as if running an absurdist obstacle course, into phrases and sentences like these: “Hours absorbed the clock like soap absorbing water, lathering time into a smooth thickness”; “everyone crippled in disgust and shock”; “Mist outlined the black vehicle like pebbles in a pond.” Despite the depth of the author’s research, children wrongly address their mothers as “Mama-san,” a term reserved for women in charge of bars, geisha houses and the like.
This overly long novel’s mangled phrasing impedes the reading process.Pub Date: March 18, 2012
ISBN: 978-1470168162
Page Count: 460
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 5, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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
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