by Nicolaia Rips ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 12, 2016
An engaging story with a big heart, written by a young adult whose sharply tuned and often witty observations will appeal to...
First-time author Rips, a high school senior who lives with her parents in New York’s legendary Chelsea Hotel, reflects on her earlier years attending public schools in the city and befriending the many eccentric residents at the hotel.
In this delightful coming-of-age memoir, the author draws a portrait of her younger self as the ultimate outsider. Lacking traditional good looks, physically and often socially awkward, she was eager to make friends, yet her frequent attempts to fit in typically led to embarrassing results, her desire to be popular spiraling further away. In contrast to her challenging school life, she found it easy to connect with her neighbors. She has been accepting of their eccentricities and attuned to some of their own struggles: “our home was in the Chelsea Hotel, known for its writers, artists, and musicians, but also for its drug addicts, alcoholics, and eccentrics. At any given time, at least one from each group was in the lobby. Since there were few children in the hotel, it was with these people that I spent my time.” Her story progresses through a series of comedic episodes at school or within her home/hotel setting, and she vividly depicts each of the various characters she has encountered along the way. She writes about the many self-absorbed, narcissistic teachers and classmates (along with their obsessively hovering parents), while her neighbors come across as free-spirited and openly caring individuals—as do her parents, who can also be somewhat scatterbrained: “They were like balloons that had escaped a child’s grasp—pointlessly floating.” Rips is a gifted writer who quickly reveals a mature, nuanced insight into human behavior. She has a genuine talent for extracting comic potential within these encounters, yet she balances them with moments of surprising poignancy.
An engaging story with a big heart, written by a young adult whose sharply tuned and often witty observations will appeal to adults and teens alike.Pub Date: July 12, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-3298-8
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2016
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by Chris Gardner with Quincy Troupe ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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by Jon Krakauer ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1996
A wonderful page-turner written with humility, immediacy, and great style. Nothing came cheap and easy to McCandless, nor...
The excruciating story of a young man on a quest for knowledge and experience, a search that eventually cooked his goose, told with the flair of a seasoned investigative reporter by Outside magazine contributing editor Krakauer (Eiger Dreams, 1990).
Chris McCandless loved the road, the unadorned life, the Tolstoyan call to asceticism. After graduating college, he took off on another of his long destinationless journeys, this time cutting all contact with his family and changing his name to Alex Supertramp. He was a gent of strong opinions, and he shared them with those he met: "You must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life''; "be nomadic.'' Ultimately, in 1992, his terms got him into mortal trouble when he ran up against something—the Alaskan wild—that didn't give a hoot about Supertramp's worldview; his decomposed corpse was found 16 weeks after he entered the bush. Many people felt McCandless was just a hubris-laden jerk with a death wish (he had discarded his map before going into the wild and brought no food but a bag of rice). Krakauer thought not. Admitting an interest that bordered on obsession, he dug deep into McCandless's life. He found a willful, reckless, moody boyhood; an ugly little secret that sundered the relationship between father and son; a moral absolutism that agitated the young man's soul and drove him to extremes; but he was no more a nutcase than other pilgrims. Writing in supple, electric prose, Krakauer tries to make sense of McCandless (while scrupulously avoiding off-the-rack psychoanalysis): his risky behavior and the rites associated with it, his asceticism, his love of wide open spaces, the flights of his soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-42850-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Villard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1995
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