Though written for a young-adult audience, this warm, charming novel's message about the healing and transformative power of...
Lyrical, fact-based fiction tracing the incremental liberation of a musically gifted Venetian girl.
Italy in the mid-1700s provides the lush, historical backdrop for the coming-of-age of Viva, 19, who was orphaned as a baby at the Ospedale de Maria della Pietã, a Catholic charity home for girls renowned for their dazzling, disciplined choir performances. But Viva is restless and knows the home sequesters its girls right into adulthood with little opportunity to leave the property independently and uncover "the distant and impossible." Viva resorts to escaping to the school's rooftop to dream of one day leaving the orphanage's confines to write musical compositions, a pastime that is forbidden to the girls at the home. While instructing younger students makes up a good portion of her days, Viva takes a Venetian governor's reticent daughter named Angelica under her wing and then becomes naturally maternal to Emilie, the latest tiny orphan to be left on the orphanage's doorstep, a baby whom she believes holds musical intuition. When intrepid, enterprising Swiss ambassador Jean-Jacques Rousseau arrives, he is instantly enamored of Viva and prearranges a secret escape and elopement for Angelica and her new beau, Abate Casanova. As the grand Easter celebration nears, Viva is in love and her immense talents blossom and begin to become recognized, but Emilie's mysterious origins sets off a disastrous chain of events. Slim in length yet eloquently written, Meyer's strength lies in the story's descriptive characterization: "Viva-the-Alto" makes for an engaging, virtuous protagonist with her fiery red hair framing a face grotesquely scarred by smallpox; her fellow students, some brash and catty, others timid and fearful, are a vivid and authentic supporting cast. Concluding historical notes (with photographs) afford an interesting look into ospedale life.
Though written for a young-adult audience, this warm, charming novel's message about the healing and transformative power of music will appeal to readers of any age.Pub Date: June 20, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-4303-2290-0
Page Count: 132
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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