by Louise Cypress ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 19, 2019
Well-defined characters in a zigzagging medical tale rife with surprises.
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A teenager who undergoes unconventional therapy for memory loss becomes disturbed by what she learns when she starts remembering in this YA mystery.
Seventeen-year-old Ellie Savage’s parents run the famous Narcosis Clinic in Seattle. Patients there receive a variety of treatments while they sleep for three months. Dr. Belinda Savage is a psychiatrist and plastic surgeon while her husband, Warren, specializes in dermatology. The two physicians have treated Ellie as well, primarily to help her overcome retrograde amnesia. This stems from an incident at a boarding school a couple of years ago—evidently so traumatic that Ellie’s brain is making her forget. She befriends fellow patient Dean Mathews, a 19-year-old Canadian pop star whose lisp causes him to avoid conversation and most social interactions. Ellie, however, truly likes schoolmate Cole Evans, but he barely acknowledges her. It turns out that Cole is irate because the two had a romantic moment last summer, which Ellie apparently later disregarded. But she is genuinely shocked upon hearing this, as she doesn’t remember any of it or that she was once best friends with Cole’s twin, Marley. Ellie soon links her lapses in memory to the Narcosis Clinic and suspects her parents of something devious. Cypress’ (Slay Me, 2018, etc.) novel deftly explores the dark side of therapy while retaining an appropriate sense of humor. Ellie, for example, ultimately creates Ellie-Me, essentially a manifestation of her pre-Narcosis self. It’s a remarkable display of how she copes with fleeting memories. But there are also welcome comedic touches, particularly when she responds to Ellie-Me around others, who can’t see the latter. The relationship between Cole and Ellie is absorbing (it’s indisputably a mutual affection) while the twins’ dynamic—they’re supportive but playfully combative—is likewise effective. The plot eventually spins into thriller territory but shrewdly incorporates themes of parenting and self-confidence. Cypress’ prose throughout is colorful: a crowd getting into “a ginormous frenzy” and Ellie walking “in a fog of convoluted memories and migraine medicine.”
Well-defined characters in a zigzagging medical tale rife with surprises.Pub Date: Feb. 19, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-945654-19-0
Page Count: 318
Publisher: Owl Hollow Press, LLC
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2019
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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