An accomplished first novel about the American family.
Affecting, original debut about a girl’s coming of age, set against the backdrop of the NASA space-shuttle program.
Eleven-year-old Dolores Gray dreams of becoming an astronaut, an aspiration that’s a little less far-fetched for her than for the average American kid. A math prodigy and the daughter of a NASA technician, Dolores has grown up in the shadow of Cape Canaveral and its gleaming promise of space travel. Her father, Frank, takes her to all the launches; they have cozy conversations about rocket boosters; and Dolores keeps a secret diary about the lives of the astronauts. But late in the summer of 1984, her father is laid off, and everything seems to lose its center. At her middle school, Dolores befriends intense fellow whiz-kid Eric Biersdorfer, whose father is NASA’s Director of Launch Safety. Hoping he might be persuaded to rehire Frank, Mrs. Gray invites Eric’s family to dinner and then begins an affair (or so Dolores believes) with Mr. Biersdorfer. Soon thereafter, Frank is rehired, and his wife moves out. Over the ensuing months, Dolores and her younger sister Delia rarely see their mother, but they overhear muffled cries during their father’s late-night phone conversations. In the fall of 1985, Dolores starts high school (a year early), where smoking, sex and cutting class compete for her attention with the reliable launches and returns that at last make her beloved space-shuttle program seem invincible. When the Challenger explodes in January 1986, the fragile threads of hope Dolores had clung to—that her mother would return, that her father’s job was secure, that her future could be shaped by her will to fly—disintegrate along with the shuttle. Dean deftly shapes her tale, moving from the complicated social system of children and piercing details of adolescent cruelty (Dolores begins to shun Eric at school at the prodding of an alpha girl) to the secretive world of parents and the lofty aspirations of those dedicated to the mystery of outer space.
An accomplished first novel about the American family.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2007
ISBN: 0-7432-9722-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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