An enjoyable, cranky novel about an unwilling unscripted television actor.
A former reality star is forced to return to the show that once destroyed his personal life in this comic novel by Schild (Aversion Therapy, 2012).
Eight years ago, Mick Rhodes became famous—or infamous—for an incident that occurred on the reality television show House Rules. Mick walked in on his fiancee, Molly Gipson, in bed with another man, Parker Peppercorn, and promptly engaged Parker in a fistfight. The scene became the stuff of trash TV legend—“Entertainment Weekly dubbed the ‘Parker and Mick incident’ as its number two most unbelievable moment in reality television history”—and Mick has spent the years since hiding away from the public eye behind the desk of his comic-book shop. When his old cast mate and only real friend, Annie Windham, begs him to participate in a House Rules reunion, Mick agrees despite his better judgment. The catch is, the show is formatted as a road trip. This means that he’ll be living in an RV for two and a half weeks with the rest of the cast, including Parker and Molly. As Mick is forced to complete asinine challenges during the day and ignore the sounds of Parker and Molly’s attention-seeking lovemaking at night, he tries to figure out how to survive the trip with his dignity intact. Then he finds out Annie’s husband is talking divorce, and Mick discovers that he is not immune to a bit of reality show intrigue himself. Schild’s prose is light and smooth, animating comic book–loving Mick’s bitter voice: “I didn’t really care if I was intruding at this point, so I wandered over to the pair as if it were not patently obvious they were squabbling like Batman and Talia al Ghul.” The superhero obsession reads as rather generic in these days of the movies pouring forth from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but Schild manages to fill the book with all the hookups, betrayals, and hijinks that one desires from an actual reality show. The author keeps the plot moving while still managing to wring some surprisingly astute comments on contemporary life out of the reality TV metaphor.
An enjoyable, cranky novel about an unwilling unscripted television actor.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: 978-1-73385-419-1
Page Count: -
Publisher: Headlong Into Harm Press
Review Posted Online: Jan. 14, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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