by Monte Merrick ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 8, 1993
Teenage fantasies of horror in the house next door yield to the reality of a family falling apart—in this YA-ish debut novel from screenwriter Merrick. Nelson Jaqua's 13th summer is also the summer of his discontent. It's 1962; the Portland, Oregon, teenager has been told to mind his little sister Maude all day long, which means no summer job and no joining his friends Cat and Tim in their detective work. The three loners have found common cause in investigating Bobby Shook's disappearance; tomboy Cat is convinced that Bobby's elderly parents have murdered the retarded Bobby and buried him in the basement. Meanwhile, their surveillance is a nice distraction for Cat from her own troubles: her mother has just run off with another man, leaving her alone with her uncommunicative father. But Nelson is in worse shape than Cat: Maude is driving him crazy; his parents, neglecting both him and Maude, are talking divorce; Cat and Tim have unaccountably started dating, cutting him out of the picture; and he has constant headaches. His solution is to break into the Shooks' house. Old man Shook catches him and demonstrates conclusively that there is no dead body: Bobby is in the hospital in a coma. Fortunately for Nelson, both the Shooks are sweethearts, who serve their young intruder blackberry pie and soon become surrogate parents for both Nelson and Maude, giving Cat the opportunity to make major mischief. A dramatic climax involving cops and a drawn gun shocks Nelson's folks into acknowledging their shortcomings. Nelson's efforts to cope with a world suddenly made treacherous by parental love withheld are described with delicacy and humor—in a distinctly above-average example of the coming-of- age genre.
Pub Date: July 8, 1993
ISBN: 1-56282-862-2
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
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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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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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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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