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IN MY SISTER’S COUNTRY

Name: IN MY SISTER’S COUNTRY
Author: Lise Haines
ISBN: 0-399-14857-4

by Lise Haines ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 22, 2002

Adolescent angst.

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Sibling rivalry carried to the max in a first novel about sisters living unhappily together in Chicago.

While their mother is dying of cancer, high-school senior Molly moves in with her older sister Amanda, lifestyles editor at a magazine. A thoroughly subjective narrator, Molly portrays Amanda as evil, almost deranged. Molly’s antagonism fuels the plot, but whether it's justified remains a question (Haines drops occasional hints to the contrary). Years earlier, Molly and Amanda’s father, a successful therapist, disappeared. Their now-destitute mother, who may or may not have been her husband’s patient, sold their house and moved them to a tumbledown mansion she hoped to renovate. Amanda, then a teenager who managed the household for her weak mother, convinced her to take a boarder. Not allowed to meet him herself, Molly knew Amanda and her mother secretly made separate weekly visits to the mysterious Mr. Graf. As in so much of the story, the timeline and Molly’s age during this period remain murky: if Amanda, who has graduated from college and had time to become a successful professional, was then in high school, Molly should have been quite young when the secret of Mr. Graf’s identity was revealed, but she comes across as at least preteen and already jaded. Molly blames Amanda for much of the pain she and her mother went through, and she gets her revenge, at least in her own mind, by seducing Amanda’s boyfriend Nathaniel, a sexy if slightly perverted businessman who never coalesces into a real character. At the same time, Molly hooks up with a wealthy classmate who whisks her away to Europe to have his baby. The scenes with Molly’s mother achieve a genuine sadness and sense of loss, but in general the tale suffers from Molly’s unrelentingly brittle voice. Although Amanda’s behavior at the end seems to reinforce Molly’s accusations, Molly remains such a little bitch that Amanda gets the benefit of the doubt.

Adolescent angst.

Pub Date: April 22, 2002

ISBN: 0-399-14857-4

Page Count: 336

Publisher: BlueHen/Putnam

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2002

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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MAGIC HOUR

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

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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.