A contrived, poorly constructed climax caps an anemic plot in this soapy tale of two teenagers struggling to make sense of personal, social, and racial relations in a small Georgia town. Kari can't explain, even to herself, why she puts a rock through African-American classmate Shawna's window, but the incident draws the pair together—especially after they learn that Kari's mother, Allison, and Shawna's father, Joe, have a history that's been hushed up. Meanwhile, Shawna's editorial in the school paper challenging the antebellum customs of the town's upcoming Old South Ball, and an ensuing letter in which an interracial couple, Marlon and Natalie, announce their intention to attend, stirs up an exclusive girls' club of which Kari is an increasingly unenthusiastic member. For reasons that are never clear, Joe and Allison won't talk about why they didn't graduate with their high-school class: Joe abruptly went to Chicago, and Allison was bustled off to relatives in Knoxville for six months. Shawna and Kari bolt to Knoxville, believing themselves to be searching for the half-sibling they never knew they had. Having pushed her characters to a fever pitch, Hewett (Soulfire, 1996) mercilessly bursts their balloon: Yes, Joe and Allison were found in a compromising situation, but there was no baby. The racial controversy over the ball is also summarily resolved; such haste combined with gaps in logic, fragmentary conversations, and a weak finish make for a patchy story at best. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-525-45959-6
Page Count: 214
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1998
BOOK REVIEW
Paulsen recalls personal experiences that he incorporated into Hatchet (1987) and its three sequels, from savage attacks by moose and mosquitoes to watching helplessly as a heart-attack victim dies. As usual, his real adventures are every bit as vivid and hair-raising as those in his fiction, and he relates them with relish—discoursing on “The Fine Art of Wilderness Nutrition,” for instance: “Something that you would never consider eating, something completely repulsive and ugly and disgusting, something so gross it would make you vomit just looking at it, becomes absolutely delicious if you’re starving.” Specific examples follow, to prove that he knows whereof he writes. The author adds incidents from his Iditarod races, describes how he made, then learned to hunt with, bow and arrow, then closes with methods of cooking outdoors sans pots or pans. It’s a patchwork, but an entertaining one, and as likely to win him new fans as to answer questions from his old ones. (Autobiography. 10-13)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-385-32650-5
Page Count: 150
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2000
Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones. (Autobiographical fiction. 11-13)
An exhilarating summer marked by death, gore and fire sparks deep thoughts in a small-town lad not uncoincidentally named “Jack Gantos.”
The gore is all Jack’s, which to his continuing embarrassment “would spray out of my nose holes like dragon flames” whenever anything exciting or upsetting happens. And that would be on every other page, seemingly, as even though Jack’s feuding parents unite to ground him for the summer after several mishaps, he does get out. He mixes with the undertaker’s daughter, a band of Hell’s Angels out to exact fiery revenge for a member flattened in town by a truck and, especially, with arthritic neighbor Miss Volker, for whom he furnishes the “hired hands” that transcribe what becomes a series of impassioned obituaries for the local paper as elderly town residents suddenly begin passing on in rapid succession. Eventually the unusual body count draws the—justified, as it turns out—attention of the police. Ultimately, the obits and the many Landmark Books that Jack reads (this is 1962) in his hours of confinement all combine in his head to broaden his perspective about both history in general and the slow decline his own town is experiencing.
Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones. (Autobiographical fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-37993-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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