A tragic thriller about curdled friendships and the dangerous thrills of the unknown, saddled with an ending that readers...
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
BOOK REVIEW
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
Steinbeck's peculiarly intense simplicity of technique is admirably displayed in this vignette — a simple, tragic tale of Mexican little people, a story retold by the pearl divers of a fishing hamlet until it has the quality of folk legend. A young couple content with the humble living allowed them by the syndicate which controls the sale of the mediocre pearls ordinarily found, find their happiness shattered when their baby boy is stung by a scorpion. They dare brave the terrors of a foreign doctor, only to be turned away when all they can offer in payment is spurned. Then comes the miracle. Kino find a great pearl. The future looks bright again. The baby is responding to the treatment his mother had given. But with the pearl, evil enters the hearts of men:- ambition beyond his station emboldens Kino to turn down the price offered by the dealers- he determines to go to the capital for a better market; the doctor, hearing of the pearl, plants the seed of doubt and superstition, endangering the child's life, so that he may get his rake-off; the neighbors and the strangers turn against Kino, burn his hut, ransack his premises, attack him in the dark — and when he kills, in defense, trail him to the mountain hiding place- and kill the child. Then- and then only- does he concede defeat. In sorrow and humility, he returns with his Juana to the ways of his people; the pearl is thrown into the sea.... A parable, this, with no attempt to add to its simple pattern.
Pub Date: Nov. 24, 1947
ISBN: 0140187383
Page Count: 132
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1947
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