Although the plot is a bit overfamiliar, Schuster does a fine job in maintaining Audrey’s aura of denial even as she plunges...
A suburban single mother of two juggles her motherly responsibilities, the editorship of a local paper and a growing addiction to cocaine.
This debut novel by English teacher and pop commentator Schuster (The Greatest Show in the Galaxy: The Discerning Fan’s Guide to Doctor Who, 2007, etc.) aims a pointedly jaundiced eye at American consumerism. It acidly portrays the modern American family through the eyes of a matriarch transformed—not necessarily negatively—by her addiction to drugs. Audrey Corcoran is trying to get by in a world that’s been turned upside-down by her acrimonious divorce from her husband Roger, whose vivacious girlfriend Chloe causes Audrey no end of jealous exasperation. Her oldest daughter is reaching the age of teenaged resentment, while her precocious younger daughter more closely resembles a sophisticated teenager than the 8-year-old she is. On top of it all, Audrey supports the whole family with her gig in a dead-end job as the editor of a glorified restaurant review whose stock in trade is more of a complex barter system than functional business. So perhaps it’s no wonder that when Audrey begins dating Owen Little, the hipster owner of a local dive, she begins to feel some pangs of temptation. “Maybe I let it slip that a girl could always change her mind,” Audrey muses. “Maybe I mentioned that even though no always meant no, there was always room for negotiation. Maybe I gave Owen the impression that I was open to trying coke just once, just out of curiosity, just to see if it would do anything for me.” It’s not too many bumps later before Audrey realizes that her overcomplicated life is made much easier through chemical acceleration, not to mention that the dealing of many ounces of coke eases her financial burdens as well.
Although the plot is a bit overfamiliar, Schuster does a fine job in maintaining Audrey’s aura of denial even as she plunges deeper into quicksand of her own making.Pub Date: June 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-57962-208-4
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Permanent Press
Review Posted Online: April 8, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2011
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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