A promising debut penned in vivid, suspenseful prose that gives a new spin to the classic tale of fathers and sons.
Twelve-year-old Max’s father, Rasheed, is determined to give Max everything he longed for throughout his own childhood in Lebanon, but he can't prevent their growing alienation as Max becomes a teenager and seeks out his Lebanese heritage.
Growing up in New Jersey, Max has never heard his father talk about “old Lebanese friends or family or religion or politics.” Rasheed’s friends are Tim, Max’s basketball coach, and their neighbor Mr. Yang, a fellow immigrant. For Rasheed, spending time with Mr. Yang is a respite from his “foreignness in other social environments.” But after Max chokes on a glob of candy at a party and nearly dies—saved only by a deft use of the Heimlich maneuver—the shock finally prompts Rasheed to talk about Max’s mother and their extended family, who were all murdered in Lebanon. What Max needs, Rasheed realizes, is a mother. He immediately finds a 22-year-old co-worker named Kelly to become his girlfriend and moves her into their home. Kelly, however, is more interested in Max than in his father—cuddly and affectionate, she slips into bed with Max at night and shows him how to masturbate. When Kelly runs off with their neighbor Nadine’s boyfriend, Max, now in eighth grade, seeks comfort in Nadine, driving a wedge between himself and his father. This rift is cemented when, in an overused deus ex machina, Max finds out that his mother is still alive and heads to Beirut to find her. Despite the tired plot device, this promising debut offers a finely nuanced look at race, gender, and power in American society. Dimechkie is at his best when allowing his great development of character, rather than forced plot points, to propel the narrative.
A promising debut penned in vivid, suspenseful prose that gives a new spin to the classic tale of fathers and sons.Pub Date: May 19, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-63286-058-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: March 3, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2015
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
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