An interesting murder plot in a carefully constructed setting is the appealing feature of this uneven, wan romance with too...
The latest installment of Ripper’s Queers of La Vista series (The Butch and the Beautiful, 2016, etc.) explores the connections, divisions, and wide range of emotions characters experience living in a queer-friendly California town.
Ed Masiello, a trans man who has been on testosterone for a year, is still getting used to passing and gaining the courage to date. In this opposites-attract romance, Alisha is a free spirit and risk taker. Identifying at first as a lesbian, she “wants to be open and exposed and take things in,” accepting with ready aplomb falling for a trans man: “This is so weird. Like, I’ve been a lesbian since I knew what the word meant. And now I totally have a boyfriend.” Ripper writes mostly dialogue, interspersed with Ed’s short interior monologues. While the titles and branding of the series are a cheeky nod to daytime soap operas, this is a somber romance. Ed is a reporter on the trail of a murderer who hunts at Club Fred’s, the queer community’s local night spot. Since Ed is mostly preoccupied with the psychological and social challenges of his transition and solving the murders, the romance is a muted, no-conflict affair, even while the sex scenes are explicit. Ripper writes in a didactic, overtly political voice that can make scenes that should be lighthearted or hot read like a gender studies lesson, as when Ed thinks, during sex, “Sex acts weren’t gendered, dammit. Body parts didn’t feel any obligation to conform to cultural expectations.” The plight of queer homeless youth, the history of gay rights, the AIDS crisis, and the prejudices inherent in social institutions like the police and the press all get at least a mention. While it can be read on its own, readers will benefit from prior knowledge of the cast of secondary characters that populate this book.
An interesting murder plot in a carefully constructed setting is the appealing feature of this uneven, wan romance with too little conflict and zero sizzle.Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-62649-438-1
Page Count: 238
Publisher: Riptide
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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