by Neil Bartlett ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 2014
This all feels familiar from various Dickens stories—the orphan, the orphan’s patrons, the illusions, the unfriendly...
In post–World War II England, an orphan named Reggie Rainbow struggles to make ends meet as a “disappearance boy”—the invisible helper of a struggling illusionist.
Reggie is first introduced as an orphan standing nearly naked in rags on a railroad track, hoping that if he dies he will be reunited with his dead mother, who he imagines is an angel. Instead, he’s whisked off the rails; the next time we see him after this dramatic, Dickensian setup, he’s a young adult on his way to work. His unusual job is to hide in small contraptions to help make the illusionist Mr. Brookes’ female assistant successfully vanish from the audience’s view. Unfortunately, London’s interest in magic shows has subsided, and Mr. Brookes fires his female assistants with regularity. There are long scenes describing precisely how the tricks work (or fail to work), and instead of being revealing, they feel procedural and tedious. The narrator rather unsuccessfully addresses the reader in the second person, as if we are audience members watching the show: “As you can see, the Lady is indeed missing.” This creates a flatness in the prose, removing elements of surprise from the story. Reggie looks like he might be out of work, but things turn around, and Mr. Brookes picks up a gig in a new place, Brighton, and a new, more self-assured female assistant named Pamela, who takes the job thinking, “How hard can being made to disappear be?” Unfortunately, Pamela, like those who preceded her, finds herself under Mr. Brookes’ thumb. It’s Reggie’s friendship that saves the day when he uses a bit of magic he’s learned to turn the tables on his unkind employer.
This all feels familiar from various Dickens stories—the orphan, the orphan’s patrons, the illusions, the unfriendly businessmen, the saviors—and the 1950s setting isn’t enough to refresh the great expectations.Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-62040-725-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Oct. 8, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
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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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