May prompt catch-up reading among the uninitiated.
Continuing rags-to-riches saga of Annette Goode Davis, her best friend Rhoda and the exasperating men, parents and children in their lives.
In this fifth of Monroe’s God series (God Ain’t Blind, 2009, etc.), Annette, 47, appears to have finally surmounted her destitute and traumatized childhood. She’s a successful collection agent, happily married to childhood sweetheart Pee Wee, the most prosperous black barber in Richland, Ohio. Their 11-year-old daughter Charlotte is well behaved and popular, even if she prefers pizza to collard greens. Annette is still surrounded by the wacky supporting cast Monroe introduced in the first book (God Don’t Like Ugly, 2000). Her mother, the now-elderly Muh’Dear, has reunited with Annette’s father, whose desertion of the family (in Ugly) for a white woman led to his family’s impoverishment and subsequent troubles. Scary Mary, the semi-retired madam who sheltered and occasionally employed Annette and Muh’Dear during their lean times, is still Richland’s go-to rumor-monger. But Annette ignores Mary’s hints that stalwart Pee Wee is planning to abscond with his new light-skinned manicurist, Little Leg Lizzie (so named because of her withered leg, the result of polio). Irony of ironies, Annette herself had suggested hiring Lizzie, to give Pee Wee an edge over a rival upstart barbershop, and to help Lizzie overcome her shyness. At Annette’s suggestion, Lizzie has a makeover, and the newly glam nail stylist soon has the barbershop clientele—and proprietor—wrapped around her cuticle trimmer. When Pee Wee leaves, Annette retaliates by taking up with former fling Jacob, but he turns out to be an abusive deadbeat. Meanwhile, Rhoda’s spoiled diva daughter Jade has returned from yet another out-of-state husband hunt with latest conquest Vernie, whom she doesn’t hesitate to batter when he’s too slow to obey her commands. Much back story from previous installments unduly burdens this narrative, despite the pleasure of watching Annette and Rhoda soldier on, wisecracks at the ready.
May prompt catch-up reading among the uninitiated.Pub Date: June 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-7582-3859-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Dafina/Kensington
Review Posted Online: Dec. 27, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
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.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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