Combine a saucy, Waiting to Exhale sort of girl-gossip tone with Vox's lusty sexuality and you get this witty, sophisticated (if unfortunately titled) tale of four Australian women friends' amatory peccadillos. Julia, a photographer, adores younger men—even if they do exhibit a frustrating refusal to commit. Helen, a ``whole-grain loaf'' of a lit professor, can whip up a salacious fantasy about any man despite her feminist politics and anxiety about her weight. Chantal, the anoretic fashion editor of a style magazine, prefers the safety of gay men to the arrogant hetero poseurs she's met in the past. And Philippa, a self-defined lesbian and voyeur, claims she keeps herself sexually satisfied by committing her erotic fantasies to paper. Meeting at Sydney's CafÇ Da Vida, these four high-powered women, all in their early 30s, relish exchanging reports of exceptional one-night stands, libidinous fantasies, shocking past encounters, and erotic schemes for the future. As Chantal recalls her student/mentor S&M relationship with a now- renowned poet and fends off drooling fellow espresso drinkers at the cafÇ, Julia tells of seducing a dreadlocked 21-year-old, then flying off to China, where she's ravished in a park by a local contortionist and snake-charmer. Helen captivates her friends with an impossibly lush and funny fantasy of a seaside encounter with Rambo, then stuns them with the re-creation of a tryst with a truck driver. What these three women don't realize as they chat over their cappuccino is that quiet Philippa is taking mental notes, and that their secrets will soon appear in ``fictionalized'' form in a novel entitled Eat Me. Philippa is soon forgiven, though, as her friends note that she's as generous in print with her own past as with theirs. Already a bestseller in its native Australia (the author was raised in Connecticut but works as a freelance journalist in Sydney), this tossed salad of erotic scenarios charms as few examples of its genre ever have. ($50,000 ad/promo; author tour)
Pub Date: June 11, 1997
ISBN: 0-553-06697-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Broadway
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
