Andrews delivers a blissfully divine holiday gift.
Andrews (Ladies’ Night, 2013, etc.) spreads tidings of comfort and bundles of joy in her latest Weezie Foley and BeBe Loudermilk romp, the fourth in her Southern series.
Readers don’t have to be familiar with Andrews’ previous books about the Savannah-based best friends to enjoy this follow-up to Blue Christmas (2006). Jean Eloise Foley, aka Weezie, is finalizing plans for an intimate wedding ceremony on Christmas Eve, a scant week away, while her fiance’s in New York serving as a guest chef in a prestigious restaurant. Unable to wait a week until Daniel returns home for the nuptials, especially when she spies a photo of him in a gossip sheet with the gorgeous owner, Weezie hops a plane to the Big Apple to surprise him, thanks to BeBe’s frequent flier miles. Meanwhile, BeBe’s experiencing a great deal of discomfort of her own. She and her boyfriend, Harry, are expecting a baby in six weeks’ time, and she’s feeling as huge as a whale, taking care of a business, trying to oversee renovations on a new home and hiding a disturbing secret from Harry—all while dogsitting Jethro, Weezie’s dog, who’s not exactly howling with delight to be in BeBe’s care. As Weezie worries from afar about her dad’s increasing forgetfulness, her mother’s insistence on baking fruitcake for all the wedding guests and her friends’ flamboyant decorating ideas, she revels in the magical feeling of exploring NYC during the holiday season. Then she’s hit with a bombshell that may seriously impact her life. Important decisions loom for both couples as Weezie and Daniel’s wedding and BeBe’s due date rapidly approach, but will everyone live happily ever after? Readers can expect a delightful diversion that’s fast paced, character-driven and extremely fun.
Andrews delivers a blissfully divine holiday gift.Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-250-01972-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Sept. 15, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
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
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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