by Kimberla Lawson Roby ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 10, 2011
Schadenfreude is the only enjoyment readers could derive from watching these spoiled characters repeatedly self-destruct.
Eighth in Roby’s Reverend Curtis Black series, this time featuring Curtis’ clueless third wife, Charlotte.
Despite his checkered past as clerical babe magnet to the entire Chicago-land African-American community, Curtis has emerged unscathed and wealthier than ever as pastor of his own megachurch in ex-urban Chicago. His family, wife Charlotte and their son Matthew, enjoy all the perks of Black’s success, including entrees to Ivy League schools and shopping sprees at Tiffany. However, another viper (the couple’s domestic road has been a rocky one as regular readers will know) lurks in the gold-plated nest. Curtis’ lover Tabitha, stricken with AIDS, dies, leaving her two-year-old daughter Curtina in her baby-daddy Curtis’ care. The affair with Tabitha was Curtis’ payback for Charlotte’s adultery in a previous installment. (That liaison resulted in a child, now deceased, whom Charlotte tried to pass off as Curtis’ own). Charlotte, predictably, doesn’t consider them even. She resents Curtina’s presence in her household and insists that Curtis consign her to one of Tabitha’s relations. Curtis’ refusal to abandon the girl starts the cycle of revenge affairs spinning yet again. While carousing in a Chicago jazz club, Charlotte meets Tom, with whom she trysts drunkenly in a sleazy motel. As their marriage disintegrates, Curtis is tempted by a number of predatory females all too willing to be wife No. 4, including Raven, the church’s CFO, and a hot-to-trot parishioner named Sharon. Charlotte enjoys a passionate Palm Beach weekend with Michael, an old flame re-ignited via Facebook. Just when Matthew’s involvement in a high-school hostage situation seemingly reunites the couple—now remorseful, Charlotte is even trying to act motherly toward Curtina—Michael’s estranged wife Sybil, and Tom, who has his own agenda, threaten to expose her betrayals. The pace, slowed by too much stilted dialogue and clunky exposition, accelerates in the last pages, preparing the way for the next novel.
Schadenfreude is the only enjoyment readers could derive from watching these spoiled characters repeatedly self-destruct.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-446-57245-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2010
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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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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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