The charm and quirkiness of its predecessor are spread far too thin in this superficial follow-up.
Soapy sequel to Beginner’s Luck (2003) brings back 17-year-old Hallie Palmer, home for the summer and trying to lose her virginity.
After her freshman year at college, Hallie returns to bucolic Cosgrove County, Ohio. But she doesn’t go back to her family’s overcrowded house, moving in instead with the eccentric crowd at the Stockton estate: mother Olivia, son Bernard, his lover Gil and an alcoholic chimp named Rocky. In three short months, Hallie solves everyone’s problems. First on her list is reconciling the boyfriends. To everyone’s shock, Gil is now dating women; Bernard wallows in grief while staging a Dark Victory marathon. Next in line is reforming Hallie’s little sister Louise, who’s running with a fast crowd, wearing black eye shadow and flunking high school. Our heroine also strives to stave off the imminent bankruptcy of Herb the pharmacist, who’s being undercut by the evil Valueland. And Hallie has problems of her own. She needs to raise thousands for next year’s tuition, and she’s trying to decide whether to have sex for the first time. After all, how does she know he’s the one? (This whole subplot is handled in a manner more appropriate for a juvenile audience.) The plot and the laughably tidy resolution are predictable, but the real failing lies with the all-too-familiar personalities. Instead of developing her secondary characters, Pederson reverts to types: Cappy the rascally bookmaker, Olivia the bohemian matriarch, Ottavio the passionate Italian, Bernard the gay cliché. (He’s an antiques dealer, a gourmand and loves Ethel Merman show tunes.) Apparently she doesn’t think her readers are smart enough for anything subtler; every time someone makes an obvious allusion, the author feels obliged to explain: Hegel is a German philosopher; “Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night” is from an old Bette Davis flick, etc.
The charm and quirkiness of its predecessor are spread far too thin in this superficial follow-up.Pub Date: July 26, 2005
ISBN: 0-345-47955-6
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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