The second installment of Mae’s (Too Cubed Unauthorized: Volume I, 2011) detailed saga of fictional band Too Cubed picks up where the first left off.
Newcomers to this series may have a hard time sorting out the enormous cast, and the lack of recap doesn’t make this a good series entry. Those familiar with the first volume, however, will find the Eight back in form, struggling to break out amid a beautifully drawn background of 1980s pop culture. Success brings all sorts of difficulties, including mob scenes at shows, banishment from clubs, groupies and an unfathomable amount of drugs and alcohol. But the Too Cubed boys weather it all, their faces continually turned toward better days as they learn the ins and outs of the music business. That optimism mutes the gravity of the heroin habits two of the band members develop and how it affects the band’s onstage performances; feeling the pain and seeing the conflict would bond the reader more closely to the various Too Cubed members. Mae knows the music industry and this musical scene, even without the intrusions that remind us that the narrator is a die-hard Too Cubed fan. This sensibility at times allows the author to spend too many pages and too much detail on the band’s shows and, sometimes, conversations that would be better served off the page. The scope and detail involved with this four-volume saga impresses, and the book ends with a signal that the band might be going through bass players the way Spinal Tap went through drummers. Amid the merry fun that Too Cubed carries wherever they go, however, is a truly chilling revelation about one of the band members, a character trait that casts an eerie glow over the band’s eventual demise. Despite its weaknesses, it’s all but impossible to not close the back cover and immediately pick up the next installment.
Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-0984598113
Page Count: 430
Publisher: Lonna Mae Enterprises
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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