by Mike Gayle ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 9, 2002
While readers may sometimes have to resist the urge to throttle Will, Gayle pokes enough fun at his character’s self-induced...
Londoner loser obsesses over the loss of the love of his life, in a slight but not unlikable marriage of Nick Hornby and romantic-comedy clichés.
Will Kelly is miserable and hasn’t a clue what he’s going to do with his life. His girlfriend of three years, Agnes (Aggi), dumped him on his 23rd birthday. Now his 26th is coming up and he’s just as fixated on her as ever. We meet Will as he’s finishing up another week at a job he hates—teaching English to unruly 14-year-olds—and heading back to his sordid flat for a weekend of depression. Although he seems to have enough to be upset about already—miserable job, horrible living situation, dead broke—he’s managed to make things worse. In a sad attempt to rid himself of Aggi, he had a one-night stand with the needy and tear-prone Martina, who’s now calling him nonstop. And he’s made an ass out of himself bumming smokes from children at his school. There’s an illusory ray of sunshine in the form of Kate, a girl who used to live in his flat and once called to see if any mail had come for her. A few marathon phone sessions later, Will is convinced he’s falling in love with Kate. But the memory of Aggi won’t die. It’s difficult to feel much sympathy for a character so desperate and clinging, not to mention one saddled with an attitude full of, as he puts it, “sheer blatant crapness.” But Gayle is smart enough a writer not to make too big a deal out of these failings, and he packs all the love and despair into one long, revelation-heavy weekend.
While readers may sometimes have to resist the urge to throttle Will, Gayle pokes enough fun at his character’s self-induced and hilariously pathetic predicament to make this a genial time-killer.Pub Date: July 9, 2002
ISBN: 0-7679-0973-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Broadway
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2002
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
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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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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
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