Newcomer McLarin, who’s worked for the AP, Philadelphia Inquirer, and the New York Times, debuts with the story of a young black woman’s struggles—professional and social—in the white man’s world of journalism. Although far too few scenes from Hope Robinson’s formative youth are on view here, it’s clear that her years as one of the few black students at a northeastern prep school have had a lasting effect on her adult attitude toward both blacks and whites. Now a news reporter at The Philadelphia Record, the 28-year-old Hope feels shunned by the other black employees and wary of the white ones. Caught between two worlds, a psychological state she’s come to regard as routine, she reaches out to no one and returns each day to her solitary apartment where she sleeps, watches TV, and screens calls from her worried mother back in Memphis, who depends on Hope and her younger sister to fulfill her own dreams. When Hope meets charismatic David Carson, a white editor at her paper, and learns he’s romantically involved with Stephanie Woodbridge, a white reporter who seems to epitomize the privileged, racist type, Hope decides to release her pent-up anger in a highly personal way. Her subsequent torrid affair with David ends sadly when David decides he can—t give up on Stephanie, who’s been awarded a promotion and will be leaving Philadelphia for good. After plenty of heartache, Hope finally opens herself instead to Malcolm, a radical black reporter from another paper who needs Hope’s talent for mental balance as much as she needs his impulsiveness. The big discovery: no one is as perfect as they seem. Yet another not-so-gripping, syrupy romance: Hope’s work-life, unfortunately, is more revelatory than her love life—and would have been far more interesting. (Author tour)
Pub Date: July 8, 1998
ISBN: 0-688-15516-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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