LOSING GEMMA

Name: LOSING GEMMA
Author: Katy Gardner
ISBN: 1-57322-933-4

by Katy Gardner ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 23, 2002

A tragic thriller about curdled friendships and the dangerous thrills of the unknown, saddled with an ending that readers...

bookshelf

Two young Brits go backpacking in India, but only one comes back.

With all the arrogance and lack of planning that makes life in your early 20s so messy, a pair of British girls who have been friends since very early childhood—Gemma and Esther—arrive in India for a backpacking trip, circa 1989. Esther’s guilty, doomed narration makes it very clear that this trip will not end well for Gemma, and it’s mostly Esther’s fault. Gemma seems at first an unfortunate choice for a traveling companion, especially in India, as she develops heat rash, pines constantly for air-conditioning, and seems to have a passive-aggressive reaction to just about everything Esther does or says. But soon it becomes clear that Esther is almost more the problem. Arrogantly convinced of her own beauty, intellect, and strong feminist backbone, she obviously treats Gemma as her less-attractive and not-so-bright sidekick, a fact that even Esther starts to appreciate: “I was young and pretty and British and I suppose I thought I could behave exactly as I pleased.” Not to mention the fact that back home, Esther has been carrying on with the guy Gemma has a crush on and hasn’t told her yet. The trip itself is not much fun, as the girls spend most of their time fighting. Adding a hint of malevolence to the story is the arrival of full-time backpacker Coral, who brings the pair their money belt that Gemma had let fall from her bag. Esther cares not a bit for this New Age interloper, but Gemma gloms on to her immediately, regardless of her creepy intentions. The strange trio find themselves at a shrine in the jungle, and Coral becomes excited over the tradition of self-immolation—a combination that foretells a not-so-happy ending. First-time novelist Gardner spins a strong, atmospheric story that unfortunately falls too often into horror cliché. But her rendition of Gemma and Esther’s friendship will reverberate with many young female readers who might appreciate a more relationship-centered spin on the backpackers-gone-astray trope of Alex Garland’s The Beach.

A tragic thriller about curdled friendships and the dangerous thrills of the unknown, saddled with an ending that readers will see coming about 40 pages away.

Pub Date: April 23, 2002

ISBN: 1-57322-933-4

Page Count: 368

Publisher: Riverhead

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2002

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

bookshelf

BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

bookshelf

Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.

Pub Date: May 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-345-45073-6

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

bookshelf

THE ALCHEMIST

by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

bookshelf

Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.

The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.