by L.K. Chapman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 7, 2016
While adding to the literature of domestic violence, this novel delivers unpleasant characters.
In this psychological thriller, a woman with an abusive, controlling boyfriend agrees to help him exact revenge on a childhood friend.
Felicity and Jay, of Coalton in Britain, have a classic co-dependent relationship. He drinks, loses his temper, and gets into fights; she tries to intervene, picks up the pieces, and makes excuses to her friends. Even uncritical Felicity is taken aback, though, when Jay asks her to become Mark Hutchington’s girlfriend so that she can make him suffer. Eleven years ago, when Jay and Mark were 16, they were best friends—until Mark slept with Jay’s girlfriend, Sammie. She later disappeared. “Everything that’s gone wrong for me is because of him,” Jay says. Chapters from Sammie’s point of view explain the events of 11 years ago and reveal early parallels to Felicity’s experience with Jay. Felicity becomes angrily defensive when a friend confronts her about Jay’s mistreatment—“I am not vulnerable and I’m no pushover”—and to somehow prove that, she agrees with the revenge plan, though she has misgivings when Mark is gentle, caring, and supportive. (Sammie’s experience, however, suggests another side to him.) Jay’s control-freak abuse quickly escalates, and Felicity becomes his prisoner. But reaching out to Mark uncovers a terrible and dangerous secret. Chapman (Too Good for this World, 2015, etc.) writes a concise, quick-paced, and dramatic woman-in-jeopardy story. She demonstrates a superb understanding of how women wind up with charming con artists who turn abusive; Sammie, for example, gets little love or attention from her parents, who are divorcing after her brother’s death. Felicity, too, experienced a family tragedy that left her with her guard down. But it’s a tough read when not a single character is sympathetic, kind, thoughtful, or self-aware; they instead range from maddening to loathsome. The pathologies of domestic violence presented here are well-known from fictional and nonfictional sources, making some things predictable, such as Jay’s increasing violence and control and Felicity’s denial that it’s happening. The surprising elements, meanwhile, feel garish and exploitative.
While adding to the literature of domestic violence, this novel delivers unpleasant characters.Pub Date: Jan. 7, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5197-3867-7
Page Count: 260
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 26, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
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
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