Blessed Transgression

Name: Blessed Transgression
Author: Lois Jean Thomas
ISBN: 978-0-9910749-8-3

by Lois Jean Thomas ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 5, 2015

A well-told story, but readers’ sympathy for the central character will wane somewhat due to her abundant good looks, charm,...

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A young Mennonite girl’s life turns upside down when a painful family secret is revealed in Thomas’ (A Weekend with Frances, 2016, etc.) novel.

Victoria Grace Unruh, born in 1960 to middle-aged parents, is the youngest of four children in a Mennonite family living in Indiana. She barely knows her two older brothers; her older sister, Lucinda, nicknamed “Lucy,” is an unpredictable “red-headed bundle of turbulence.” Her father, Herman, a rural mailman, isn’t very bright but is “everything I ever needed him to be,” says Victoria. His kind, compassionate qualities endear him to all—except his wrathful, rigid wife. Ada, Victoria’s mother, devotes herself to the Mennonite Women’s Fellowship, but at home, she’s sharp-edged and unloving. As Victoria grows up as a Mennonite amid the loosening social strictures of the 1960s, she argues with her mother over boys (Ada believes that all men are loathsome) and sometimes feels the difference between herself and non-Mennonite kids. But her life is mostly pleasant, consisting of church, singing, good grades, and cute boyfriends at her private high school. Her peaceful stability explodes, however, when Lucy develops paranoid schizophrenia. During an angry rant, Lucy tells teenage Victoria a shameful secret, causing the younger girl to re-evaluate all she knows about herself. Although the main story is Victoria’s, Thomas gives the novel depth with flashbacks to the parents’ early lives, courtship, and marriage—an unromantic but moving saga of disappointment and lowered expectations. Herman emerges as a figure of great emotional intelligence whose humble self-criticism (“I’m just an old bumble-head”) is heartbreaking. With self-denying nobility, Herman frames the aforementioned secret in a way that allows Victoria to feel blessed by God. It’s problematic, though, that Victoria is already such a paragon: “You’re a winner. You’re a star….You’re extraordinary,” says Victoria’s best friend, Judy Prentiss; “Everything’s always been so easy for you….You’re so smart and so pretty,” says Lucy. As a result, the suffering of those in Victoria’s orbit is more compelling than her own, as it’s deeper, harder to fix, and more heart-wrenching.

A well-told story, but readers’ sympathy for the central character will wane somewhat due to her abundant good looks, charm, intelligence, and talent.

Pub Date: July 5, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-9910749-8-3

Page Count: 320

Publisher: CreateSpace

Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2016

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

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.