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THE DARK BRIDE

Lushly imagined but filled with clichés: basically another “prostitute with a heart of gold” story, tarted up with...

Colombian Restrepo (Leopard in the Sun, 1999, etc.) offers a romantic concoction about a community of prostitutes (putas) servicing workers from the oil fields.

A nameless 12-year-old girl arrives in Toro and announces her desire to become a puta to the first person she meets, a boy named Santiago. With misgivings, he takes her to Todos los Santos, a prostitute whose age is catching up with her. Todos sees the possibilities in “the girl” and devotes herself to her upbringing and training. Two years later, as the girl is about to embark on her career, Santiago, her devoted playmate and an idealist, is racked with guilt that he brought her to Todos in the first place. Leaving Toro to seek a fortune that will allow him to save the girl, he ends up at the oil fields, where he befriends Payanés. Meanwhile, the girl transforms herself into Sayonara, the most mysterious and desirable prostitute in the city. Santiago, literally sick with guilt and idealized love, sends Payanés to Toro as his messenger, and, not unexpectedly, the two fall in love. Payanés promises to visit Sayonara one Friday a month, a day she’ll reserve for him alone. Naturally, Payanés and Santiago’s friendship is strained, but Sayonara breaks the putas’ cardinal rule and asks for too much—the permanence of family. Payanés breaks her heart by admitting that he already has a family in his hometown—at which point Santiago jumps into the breach and marries Sayonara. The couple leave Toro, but Santiago is unable to forget that his wife was a prostitute. Eventually, his jealousy drives her back to Toro, where the glory days of the putas have passed. Sayonara disappears again. All await her return.

Lushly imagined but filled with clichés: basically another “prostitute with a heart of gold” story, tarted up with references to Fellini and pretentious pronouncements about love.

Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2002

ISBN: 0-06-008894-X

Page Count: 368

Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2002

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THE KITE RUNNER

Rather than settle for a coming-of-age or travails-of-immigrants story, Hosseini has folded them both into this searing...

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Here’s a real find: a striking debut from an Afghan now living in the US. His passionate story of betrayal and redemption is framed by Afghanistan’s tragic recent past.

Moving back and forth between Afghanistan and California, and spanning almost 40 years, the story begins in Afghanistan in the tranquil 1960s. Our protagonist Amir is a child in Kabul. The most important people in his life are Baba and Hassan. Father Baba is a wealthy Pashtun merchant, a larger-than-life figure, fretting over his bookish weakling of a son (the mother died giving birth); Hassan is his sweet-natured playmate, son of their servant Ali and a Hazara. Pashtuns have always dominated and ridiculed Hazaras, so Amir can’t help teasing Hassan, even though the Hazara staunchly defends him against neighborhood bullies like the “sociopath” Assef. The day, in 1975, when 12-year-old Amir wins the annual kite-fighting tournament is the best and worst of his young life. He bonds with Baba at last but deserts Hassan when the latter is raped by Assef. And it gets worse. With the still-loyal Hassan a constant reminder of his guilt, Amir makes life impossible for him and Ali, ultimately forcing them to leave town. Fast forward to the Russian occupation, flight to America, life in the Afghan exile community in the Bay Area. Amir becomes a writer and marries a beautiful Afghan; Baba dies of cancer. Then, in 2001, the past comes roaring back. Rahim, Baba’s old business partner who knows all about Amir’s transgressions, calls from Pakistan. Hassan has been executed by the Taliban; his son, Sohrab, must be rescued. Will Amir wipe the slate clean? So he returns to the hell of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and reclaims Sohrab from a Taliban leader (none other than Assef) after a terrifying showdown. Amir brings the traumatized child back to California and a bittersweet ending.

Rather than settle for a coming-of-age or travails-of-immigrants story, Hosseini has folded them both into this searing spectacle of hard-won personal salvation. All this, and a rich slice of Afghan culture too: irresistible.

Pub Date: June 2, 2003

ISBN: 1-57322-245-3

Page Count: 368

Publisher: Riverhead

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2003

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  • National Book Award Finalist


  • Pulitzer Prize Winner

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ALL THE LIGHT WE CANNOT SEE

Doerr captures the sights and sounds of wartime and focuses, refreshingly, on the innate goodness of his major characters.

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Doerr presents us with two intricate stories, both of which take place during World War II; late in the novel, inevitably, they intersect.

In August 1944, Marie-Laure LeBlanc is a blind 16-year-old living in the walled port city of Saint-Malo in Brittany and hoping to escape the effects of Allied bombing. D-Day took place two months earlier, and Cherbourg, Caen and Rennes have already been liberated. She’s taken refuge in this city with her great-uncle Etienne, at first a fairly frightening figure to her. Marie-Laure’s father was a locksmith and craftsman who made scale models of cities that Marie-Laure studied so she could travel around on her own. He also crafted clever and intricate boxes, within which treasures could be hidden. Parallel to the story of Marie-Laure we meet Werner and Jutta Pfennig, a brother and sister, both orphans who have been raised in the Children’s House outside Essen, in Germany. Through flashbacks we learn that Werner had been a curious and bright child who developed an obsession with radio transmitters and receivers, both in their infancies during this period. Eventually, Werner goes to a select technical school and then, at 18, into the Wehrmacht, where his technical aptitudes are recognized and he’s put on a team trying to track down illegal radio transmissions. Etienne and Marie-Laure are responsible for some of these transmissions, but Werner is intrigued since what she’s broadcasting is innocent—she shares her passion for Jules Verne by reading aloud 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. A further subplot involves Marie-Laure’s father’s having hidden a valuable diamond, one being tracked down by Reinhold von Rumpel, a relentless German sergeant-major.

Doerr captures the sights and sounds of wartime and focuses, refreshingly, on the innate goodness of his major characters.

Pub Date: May 6, 2014

ISBN: 978-1-4767-4658-6

Page Count: 448

Publisher: Scribner

Review Posted Online: March 5, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2014

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