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ONE HUNDRED AND ONE WAYS

Name: ONE HUNDRED AND ONE WAYS
Author: Mako Yoshikawa
ISBN: 0-553-11099-3

by Mako Yoshikawa ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 11, 1999

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Newcomer Yoshikawa tries but fails to weave the story of a young woman’s doomed love affair in Manhattan seamlessly together with the tale of her Japanese grandmother who was once a geisha. Kiki, the narrator, is a graduate student in English at Columbia and, as the story begins, thinks she may be in love with Eric, a handsome young Jewish lawyer she met at a concert. But she is also literally haunted by Phillip, the love of her life, who was killed while climbing in the Himalayas. Kiki keeps seeing Phillip in her apartment—on the window sill, in the kitchen, on a shelf—which doesn’t help her affair with Eric, though she soon accepts his proposal of marriage. As Kiki recalls how she met Phillip, a young man born to wander and charm, and as she worries that Eric may have a fetish about Asian women, she writes imaginary letters to her grandmother Yukiko, who, now a widow, has promised to visit Kiki and her mother, Akiko, in the fall. Kiki identifies strongly with her grandmother and looks forward to hearing Yukiko herself tell the story of her life. Meanwhile, Kiki relates the tales Akiko has previously told her. Sold by her parents to a geisha house, beautiful young Yukiko used guile and sex to marry a rich businessman and become a respectable member of society. Akiko defied her mother and married for love, but her brilliant, unstable husband later abandoned her. As the past and present stories move awkwardly in tandem, Yukiko cancels her travel plans, and Kiki, still mourning Phillip, breaks up with Eric. Watching Akiko with a new love on a visit home, Kiki realizes that someday she too will move on from Phillip—and that, like Yukiko and Akiko, she will always be grateful for having loved at all. Trendy Asian elements do little to gussy up an unconvincing love story.

Pub Date: May 11, 1999

ISBN: 0-553-11099-3

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Bantam

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1999

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
SECRETS OF THE SUN
by Mako Yoshikawa

- BOOK REVIEW
ONCE REMOVED
by Mako Yoshikawa

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SUMMER ISLAND

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2001

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...

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Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.

Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.

The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.

Pub Date: March 1, 2001

ISBN: 0-609-60737-5

Page Count: 336

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.