Energetic story that makes a lot of obvious points, from the author of Skin Deep (not reviewed).
Can I get some damn mercy down here?
That’s the burning question that black and beautiful Carmen DuPrè just has to ask God. She never expected to have to take a dead-end job as a guidance counselor in a tough, mostly Spanish-speaking East Los Angeles high school. Nothing—not her English degree from Spelman or her family connections in the educational bureaucracy—is going to get her out of this hellhole. She doesn’t know how she ever sunk this low, especially since she’s drop-dead gorgeous. How is she supposed to take the problems of the no-account, baggy-pants Mexican-American kids she works with seriously? They can hardly speak English. Unlike the Mexican-American car mechanic who just explained what’s wrong with her Lexus. But Pedro Camacho is more than a mechanic. He runs the repair shop and he’s a philosopher of sorts, especially since his young son just died of cancer. Yes, he knows what’s real—but Carmen still doesn’t get it. Her materialistic outlook, nasty attitude, and selfishness lead her straight down the wrong path and into bed with a creepy school superintendent—while she ignores the advances of the sincere but not quite perfect Eugene, a crusading geek from the Math Department. But when she receives a sudden and devastating diagnosis of malignant breast cancer, everything changes. Will learning to listen to Pedro’s hard-won wisdom put an end to her anti-Mexican bigotry? Yes. Will the prospect of disfiguring surgery end her obsession with her appearance and allow her to concentrate on higher things? Also yes. Most importantly, will Eugene reappear at a convenient point in the plot and save the day?
Energetic story that makes a lot of obvious points, from the author of Skin Deep (not reviewed).Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-06-093645-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2004
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
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
