by Kathleen DeMarco ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2001
Forgettable.
Self-absorbed, rather silly first novel about an orphaned yuppie.
Diana Moore, 33, is rising quickly through the ranks at a prestigious New York dot-com, although her controlling boss, Darius, is a pain in her highly toned glutes. The worst thing that’s ever happened to her thus far: an invitation to a wedding, where she’ll have to see her ex-boyfriend and his new love all huggy and happy. But she ends up not going when her beloved parents and brother Ben are killed in a car crash on the New Jersey turnpike. Devastated and emotionally adrift, Diana quits her meaningless job because Darius just doesn’t understand how she is totally, like, alone in the world. Refusing the services of a grief counselor and other trendy therapies, she heads out of the city in her trusty old Volvo, taking backroads, haunted by vivid memories of her parents, and none too aware of where she’s going. Somewhere in New Jersey? Maybe like the Pine Barrens? There’s pine trees and sand and nature and stuff, according to our somewhat incoherent heroine, and then—ohmigod! She accidentally runs into Rosie, a nutty old lady riding a motorcycle in slippers! These other people—Rosie’s relatives—show up out of nowhere and are actually mad at her, even though Diana is, like, incredibly sorry and really upset. So upset that she suddenly decides to pass herself off as a friendly if lost soul from South Carolina, and the eccentric clan of cranberry farmers somehow believe her for a while. Hey, beautiful, tough Louisa and sexy Jack and Fritz and Billy aren’t anything like the spoiled, affluent city-dwellers she knows—no, they are Real People leading Real Lives in the boggy rural paradise they call home, boldly drinking beer from the bottle and telling it like it is. Anodyne indeed for Diana’s heartsickness, enabling her to come to terms with the tragedy that shattered her life.
Forgettable.Pub Date: June 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7868-6765-5
Page Count: 240
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2001
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BOOK REVIEW
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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BOOK REVIEW
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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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