The third volume of this series doesn’t provide the same easy, absorbing read as previous installments.
Mae (Too Cubed Unauthorized: Volume II, 2011, etc.) returns with the third installment of her fictional unauthorized biography of psychedelic rock band Too Cubed.
Like its predecessor, the story picks up immediately after the previous book ended, continuing the overly detailed saga of Too Cubed. Spanning 1991 to 1995, there’s no specific plot running through this chronicle of the life and times of these road-tested musicians. Bass players continue to come and go, although keyboardist Bert seems to have outgrown his habit of helping them exit permanently. The band continues to achieve popularity and success, although their various insecurities—especially in relation to real-life band Phish—begin to wear thin. Too much time is spent on the fans, particularly groupie Gracie. This is, after all, the story of Too Cubed. One non-band character whose story doesn’t become tiresome is Sven. His brush with the law is real—and overdue, as major problems with emotional ramifications are too often glossed over for this cast of characters. As the Too Cubed men enter their 30s, thoughts of love begin to creep in as Mae plays with the very real issue many musicians face as they age: Their rock star lifestyles begin to compete with their innate human need to settle down. Connecting with characters other than bandleaders Stan and Trip can be difficult, but that doesn’t mean these two are easy to like: Trip is besieged by a heroin habit that no one will confront (which doesn’t seem to affect him much), while Stan’s controlling nature teeters on the edge of complete obnoxiousness. At times, readers will wonder if the author even likes any of the people populating the book, despite her frequent intrusions informing readers otherwise.
The third volume of this series doesn’t provide the same easy, absorbing read as previous installments.Pub Date: July 26, 2011
ISBN: 978-0984598120
Page Count: 422
Publisher: Lonna Mae Enterprises
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...
Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).
All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."Pub Date: April 8, 1974
ISBN: 0385086954
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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