Heartfelt, Christian goodwill triumphs in this utterly predictable story.
Hinton’s ninth novel is a feel-good tale in which an inexperienced priest, a wayward young woman and a terminally ill boy save the soul of a small town.
All you need to know about Pie Town, N.M., is that you can’t find any pie there. It’s that kind of place, insular, wary and a little ornery, and nobody’s going to tell the only restaurant in town they have to serve pie. The only thing that brings the place together is Alex Begay, the sheriff’s grandson, born with spina bifida, abandoned by his mother Angel and wise beyond his years. Into town come Father George, fresh from the seminary to his first parish, and Trina (she hitched a ride into Pie Town with Father George), a young woman with a hard past and a heart of gold. Alex takes a shine to her, Sheriff Begay rents her a room above his garage and she finds some waitressing work at the diner. As Alex’s condition worsens, he seems more concerned with the town than with his own survival (the spirit of his great-grandmother is always near him, guiding him). When the church burns to the ground, all fingers point toward an obviously pregnant Trina, and even though Father George knows the truth, his own crisis of faith and inability to counsel prevents him from helping her. More than anything, Alex wants Father George and Trina to stay in Pie Town, but in inspirational fashion, it is only through his death that he can save everyone. Most strikingly, Sheriff Begay and his ex-wife are reunited at Alex’s death (it was only their heartache over their daughter Angel that drove them apart), love is kindled between a waitress and an old rancher, Father George and Trina return and a church is rebuilt.
Heartfelt, Christian goodwill triumphs in this utterly predictable story.Pub Date: June 7, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-204508-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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