High jinks ’n’ politics. Whee!
A mildly hypochondriac but sweet young senatorial aide takes everything mean old Washington can throw at her while giving her all to a possible national program to lower prescription costs for senior citizens.
Vice-presidential daughter and first-time novelist Gore can be presumed to know the lay of the land. Here, the eponymous Sammy (née Samantha) Joyce, daffy in a sorority-cutup sort of way, has cast her lot with virtuous Ohio junior Senator Robert Gary, slightly grizzled, right (that is to say, left)-thinking father of two-year-old twins. Domestic policy advisor Sammy shares a flat with a succession of Japanese fighting fish and puts in 80-hour weeks trying to wrest this great nation’s prescription drug policy from the grip of the pharmaceutical companies and put it in the compassionate hands of her straight-arrow boss. She’s busy as a bee, but finds enough time in between vital hearings and the preparation of position papers to carry on a passionate fling with devilishly handsome Aaron Driver, principal speechwriter for evilly cynical New Jersey senator and presidential hopeful John Bramer. Sammy and Aaron have become bedfellows thanks to an alliance on health matters between their bosses, which sends Sammy to lend her encyclopedic knowledge of health issues to the crafting of a landmark prescription drug bill. But, oh! What's this? The Bramer team has gutted everything important from Sammy’s draft, and Senator Gary is going to go along with it! It’s a painful lesson in political compromise, and there is further pain to come. Aaron is an awfully hard partier, and there are unpleasant, unexplained gaps in his schedule. Sammy’s best friend Liza thinks he's a rat. Many, many e-mails fly (BlackBerry gets fabulous product placement), and several more fighting fish die as political and romantic alliances form and re-form. Gore goes for a zany but sweet tone while protecting her dad’s, and maybe even her own, political viability with lots of discreet veiling.
High jinks ’n’ politics. Whee!Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2004
ISBN: 1-4013-5219-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2004
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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