A touching tale of two people from different times, both trying to keep their splintering families together.
After her uncle dies in the attacks on 9/11, a tough Brooklyn teen moves to Virginia and connects across time with a boy whose family has been divided by the Civil War.
When 16-year-old Julia McKinley’s uncle Denny died on 9/11, her mother fell apart. Unable to keep living a normal life without her beloved twin brother, her mother’s solution is to leave New York, rent an old house in rural Virginia and drown her emotions in copious amounts of wine. Julia accompanies her in an attempt to provide support, leaving her father, younger brother and close friends behind to start her senior year of high school down South. Frustrated by her mother’s insistence on spending less time with her than at the bottom of a glass, Julia ends up spending a great deal of time in the house’s cellar, where she encounters a teenage boy named Elias. He’s not a ghost; he’s all too alive, just in another time period. While Julia tries to piece together her family, torn apart by terrorism, Elias, in the middle of the Civil War, hopes to reunite his Southern separatist brother with his Union-leaning father. Seemingly fated to meet in order to help each other cope, Julia and Elias grow to rely on their daily heart-to-hearts in the cellar, to the point that Julia’s growing love for someone stuck in the 19th century threatens to prevent her from fostering relationships with people in the modern world. The premise sounds straight out of Doctor Who, but rather than focus on the wild sci-fi aspects of her story, debut author Lo focuses on the emotions. What results in a far more realistic, mature look at human relationships than readers might expect from a story with such an unbelievable plot twist. A great deal of credit goes to Julia’s smart, tough narration, which keeps the story grounded in reality. She’s a funny, flawed heroine whom readers of all ages will identify with and admire.
A touching tale of two people from different times, both trying to keep their splintering families together.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Lanterna Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
A smart, lively account of a revealing episode in economic history.
Hammes’ (Economics/Univ. of Hawaii-Hilo; Shaping Our Nation, 1988) nonfiction title sheds light on the great inventor’s eccentric, intriguing foray into economic theory.
With the nation suffering from a sharp depression in the early 1920s after the inflationary boom of World War I, Thomas Edison figured he could solve the economic malaise with a plan to back the value of money with farming commodities as an alternative to the gold standard. Under his scheme, farmers would deposit their harvest in government warehouses and receive half of its 25-year average price as a loan in dollars printed by the Federal Reserve, an amount that would be repaid over the course of a year as the crops were sold off. Edison hoped to provide farmers a more stable income and the country a more stable currency founded on real value; his proposal drew much acclaim from the public and press—and scorn from economists. (One professor suggested that Edison was senile.) Economist Hammes gives a detailed, highly readable exposition of Edison’s complex scheme and its surprising resemblance to modern-day policy innovations. The Federal Reserve, he notes, now seems to be running a similar program—only instead of giving farmers money in exchange for their wheat, it gives bankers money in exchange for their toxic mortgage-backed securities. He sets Edison’s ideas against a lucid explanation of money, inflation and the gold standard, as well as a nuanced analysis of America’s 19th-century monetary controversies. At the time, currency was a stormy political issue pitting debtors, farmers and exporters against bankers and creditors. In Hammes’ vivid portrait, Edison embodies these contradictions: He’s a captain of industry who had a profound suspicion of both the Wall Street financiers who backed him and the boom-and-bust cycles that almost bankrupted him. He also emerges as a great American amateur: half-genius, half-crank, convinced that a little common-sense tinkering could improve the economy where the experts had failed. Hammes illuminates the crucial role money plays not just in the economy, but also in the national character.
A smart, lively account of a revealing episode in economic history.Pub Date: March 12, 2012
ISBN: 978-0985066703
Page Count: 166
Publisher: Richard Mahler
Review Posted Online: June 7, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Passion balanced by intelligence runs through this beautiful, surprising novel about the restorative power of love.
In psychoanalyst Alexander’s debut novel, an accomplished young woman struggles to overcome her troubled past.
Kathleen Moore arrives at UCLA with more than her fair share of baggage. Often solitary, she’s evasive when it comes to her childhood, tumultuous years that were dominated by foster care. She also grapples with uncertainties regarding her future and her sexual identity. Still, she manages to make a few friends, including sympathetic Gary and Gayle, a therapist who evolves into a surrogate mother. The worst moments in Kathleen’s life are cushioned by such friends, who respond to her difficulties with extraordinary acts of kindness. Financial constraints and a compulsion to be of service lead Kathleen to pursue a medical career in the Army, which, in the era of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” requires her to put her love life on indefinite hold. An unanticipated injury in Iraq is the catalyst for her pursuit of a more authentic life in small-town California, particularly after she meets fiery yet nurturing Claire Hollander, who pushes Kathleen to prioritize her own happiness for the first time in her life. As with many first novels, Alexander’s debut is an ambitious project that seeks to cover considerable ground. The dense story spans multiple decades, including forays into the past. Still, though years may pass in a page, Alexander avoids abrupt transitions. The host of characters may seem excessive, but they’re all skillfully developed; collectively they inculcate the sense that generosity is not so rare a virtue as the hopeless among us might imagine. Rich, tactile prose brings to life settings as diverse as idyllic Canfield, Calif., and war-torn Iraq, while introspection and allusion keep the novel psychologically taut—a considerable feat considering the broad array of Kathleen’s anxieties.
Passion balanced by intelligence runs through this beautiful, surprising novel about the restorative power of love.Pub Date: April 17, 2012
ISBN: 978-0984689910
Page Count: 279
Publisher: The Storyteller and the Healer
Review Posted Online: Aug. 1, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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