A thrilling story of teenage survival and camaraderie.
An emotionally troubled 18-year-old contends with an island boot camp in Robinson’s novel.
Whaleback Island, off the coast of Maine, is a summer retreat for wealthy members of the Club—business executives and bluebloods from New York and Boston whose connections to the island go back, in some cases, for generations. It’s also home to the Whaleback Island Leadership Detail (WILD), a program sponsored by the Club in which wayward youth are reformed into upstanding citizens by a team of exacting ex-military instructors. Walt McNamara was a hockey star at his prep school in New Hampshire before he quit the team in the midst of a playoff game and then shattered four of the school’s trophy cases with a chair. At WILD, he’s been assigned to the “huddle” led by Dick Grunewald, a grizzled, humorless man missing several fingers. His huddle includes Tess, a motel worker from Maryland, and the tall, silent, mysterious Aubrey. Each huddle works as a team to support each other during the rigorous—and somewhat martial—physical training they undergo with the vague promise of Club employment at the other end. As Walt and his new friends struggle to stay sane in the face of the brutal regimen, they begin to question the true purpose of WILD—and the agenda of the Club behind it. Robinson captures the angst and excitement of teenage spaces, even unlikely ones, as here when Walt’s huddle must all sleep spooned together on an exposed smaller island: “To feel the movement of her breath against my chest, to feel even the slightest contact of my legs against her, to smell her dirty hair, which had probably not been grimy like this before and still smelled good, I felt like a space explorer zooming through the cosmos.” The twists toward the story’s end are not quite believable, but the author constructs a rich world of substantial characters caught in the muddled aspirations of young adulthood.
A thrilling story of teenage survival and camaraderie.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2024
ISBN: 9781952143922
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Islandport Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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