DEAR STRANGER, DEAREST FRIEND

Name: DEAR STRANGER, DEAREST FRIEND
Author: Laney Katz Becker
ISBN: 0-380-97853-9

by Laney Katz Becker ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2000

A cutely packaged idea, and informative—it’s almost as much handbook as novel—but the two principals are tied to a script...

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Newcomer Becker may have hoped to bring out the hankies, but this info-novel about breast cancer and close friendship—from the “scare and cheer” template that produces many a women’s magazine article—is too formulaic to trigger the tears.

When Lara, almost 40, finds a lump in her breast, she checks out the Internet before making an appointment with her doctor. Her most helpful and sympathetic reply is from Susan, a Catholic who lives in Canton, Ohio, who advises her (successfully) to see her doctor immediately. Though Lara is Jewish and lives in a New York suburb, the two, as the months pass, become close friends. Susan urges Lara to consult a second doctor when her first mammogram is negative; Lara does, and the lump is indeed malignant. The medical details, choice of treatment, and prognosis are all clearly spelled out, and there’s even an afterword by an oncologist as well as a list of Breast Cancer Resources. On the doctor’s advice, Lara has a double mastectomy followed by chemotherapy and then, when she’s healed, breast reconstruction. She shares the experience of all this with Susan, and the two also exchange information about their husbands, children, careers, and daily lives. Susan cheers, consoles, and applauds as Lara begins to recover and resume a normal life. But then Susan’s own life starts to fall apart: now it’s Lara’s turn to help the woman she calls her dearest friend.

A cutely packaged idea, and informative—it’s almost as much handbook as novel—but the two principals are tied to a script that, for all its good intentions and somber subject, never really lets things come alive.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2000

ISBN: 0-380-97853-9

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2000

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.