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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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