Slow but maintains an entertaining feline perspective—ultimately for cat lovers only.
Hamblen’s fiction debut narrates the adventures of one woman’s many cats—during life as well as after death.
Jane, the epitome of a cat lady, adopts kittens William and Tibby—two cats in a long line of feline companions who have known Jane as “Second Mom.” Like other books told from animals’ perspectives (A Dog’s Life by Ann M. Martin), this one features a creative, realistic portrayal of a cat’s-eye view of life. For example, William and Tibby quickly learn that domesticated life has many ups and downs. On one hand, nothing beats sardines and cream or the joy of hunting in nearby fields. But the cats must also brave trips to the vet and try not to upset “Hon” (Jane’s husband). It’s often entertaining to consider the cats’ point of view, as when they describe Jane’s cars as “the two beasts that lurked in the garage” or worry that “the vacuum cleaner was on the prowl with Second Mom in close pursuit.” One night, William gets hit by a car, ending his life. He immediately wakes up in heaven where he is greeted by Third Mom, another kind woman, and all of Jane’s previous cats. As William acclimates to heaven and his new companions, Jane continues to tend cat after cat as she ages, leading to her posthumous and glorious reunion with her eager family of felines. This book’s leisurely plot has moments of tension, such as when the cats get stuck in a tree or have mild tiffs, but most of these are not particularly fraught. Its heavy focus on cats’ day-to-day lives is something that will only be truly appreciated by those who love cats. Jane’s deep adoration for her feline friends sometimes comes off as awkward or cloying—she calls her cats “my little Tibby Wibby” and “William, my little glum-wum”—but there are also many heartwarming moments that stem from this adoration. Lastly, Hamblen effectively teaches Christian lessons about God’s love, having compassion, and the importance of growing in goodness “until we become perfect.”
Slow but maintains an entertaining feline perspective—ultimately for cat lovers only.Pub Date: July 17, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-64140-526-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
Review Posted Online: July 22, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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