A tale spins its answer to an age-old question into an inclusive, hilarious, and thought-provoking yarn.
A teenager will inherit an RV park if he figures out the meaning of life in this YA novel.
In her will, Raymond Saintbury’s grandmother says he has one month to discover life’s meaning or she’ll give her RV park to his mother and uncle. A dazzling opening sequence describes the domino effect of Grandma’s death—all the ways she didn’t die before she actually did—and ends with her cryogenically frozen brain on display in the middle of her creation, Sunny Days RV Park. Dalen Anders, the celebrity self-help guru she hired to help Ray with his quest, offers him neither magic bullets nor magic beans. Ray’s transformation from a video game addict to an RV park owner and operator will take old-fashioned hard work: flipping burgers, cleaning out the pool, and scrubbing bathroom floors. Meanwhile, Ray’s mother and sister, who resent their treatment in the will, are hoping he fails. But Ray soon realizes that he is not the only person in the park with problems. Salminder, who runs the burger truck where Ray works, is battling cancer. Ray has been trying to win over Salminder’s daughter, Tina, for ages, but now he sees that helping her cope with her father’s illness is more important than trying to impress her with his gaming skills. Stewart (The Boy Who Swallows Flies, 2018, etc.) presents readers with a dynamite coming-of-age story. Backwoods without calling anyone backward, the author’s offbeat humor keeps the heavy subjects of death and poverty from becoming maudlin or bleak, as when Grandma’s body has to camp out in Ray’s trailer for a few days before the undertaker can get to her neck of the woods. Booby-trapped with guns, grizzly bears, and homemade fireworks, the cartoonish park setting skillfully gives wheels to a larger, more intriguing philosophical question. Salminder, a devout Sikh, asks Ray, “If it doesn’t matter who you are, how rich you are, where you are or what you’re doing, then why can’t you find your meaning of life here in this very RV park?”
A tale spins its answer to an age-old question into an inclusive, hilarious, and thought-provoking yarn.Pub Date: May 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-989133-00-2
Page Count: 275
Publisher: The Publishing House
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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