A kitchen-sink depiction of a dental student’s psychological suppression.
An African-American woman heading to Howard University struggles in her relationships with men in this contemporary novel.
Columbia University student Jessica Euge is in the process of selecting a dental school. Determined to be financially independent, she is wary of men, given that her father physically assaulted her mother and sexually abused her and her sister before her parents divorced. Yet Jessica also enjoys losing her virginity to Eric Braswell, an Italian-American fellow student who takes her to the Rainbow Room in Manhattan on their first date. And her top dental school choice turns out to be Howard University in Washington, D.C., because she wants to “explore the male African American cream of the crop from the US and males from various countries.” During their early days of dating, Eric’s insecurities lead him to strike Jessica. He seeks out counseling, and urges Jessica to do the same, given her own apparent issues regarding confidence in her looks and, of course, in men. She stubbornly refuses, and the two break up. Jessica succeeds at Howard academically, but runs through a string of men. Eric soon gets trapped into a marriage with another woman due to her pregnancy, but he insists they call their child Jessica. By novel’s end, Jessica experiences financial and professional challenges upon graduation and a nervous breakdown that brings her under the care of a psychiatrist who finally gets her to look at her issues. Will she find a way to forgive her father—and reunite with Eric? Chase (Esmerelda, The Gifted, Volume 1, 2013) notes that her second novel is “based on true events,” and her narrative is indeed peppered with travelogue and documentary-like details (New York City restaurants, day trips from Washington, D.C., etc.). Unfortunately, this overload of real-life tidbits (do readers need a slice of history about the Watergate Hotel?) can distract from Chase’s intriguing core drama of slowly uncovering Jessica. The author effectively portrays the protagonist as rather robotic and schizophrenic (buying into religious views of premarital sex as a sin yet also actively pursuing it) in her intense acting out before finally facing her pain and denial.
A kitchen-sink depiction of a dental student’s psychological suppression.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Dog Ear Publisher
Review Posted Online: Aug. 4, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.
Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z(2006).
A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.
A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.Pub Date: June 16, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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