A well-described setting adds strength to this coming-of-age novel.
In this YA novel, a teenage girl deals with family, relationships, and limitations, growing up in the process.
For 16-year-old Francie Mills, tennis is the only thing that matters and the only thing she can control. She’d rather ignore her doctor’s warning to stop stressing torn cartilage in her knee than go without the freedom she feels on the court. She certainly has no power over her father Hank’s drinking and how it makes him obnoxious and embarrassing. Hank coordinates transportation for movie shoots, and on location with him in Austin, Texas, Francie meets 17-year-old Chet Jones, who plays with Blues Harp Jones, a band appearing in the film. Like her, Chet lives in Southern California, though he possesses an appealing Aussie accent. He’s also cute, charming, understanding about her father, and wants to keep in touch. But Francie struggles with self-consciousness, anger, and her father’s criticism: “he made her feel like a big, fat, worthless, useless, nothing loser.” Eddie, a would-be Martin Scorsese and brother of Francie’s friend Stella, also likes Francie, but he seems safe where Chet is exciting. As Francie struggles with her feelings, her tennis, and her father’s alcoholism, she learns some hard truths and comes to a new understanding about human connections. In her debut novel, Schubert captures the melodramatic roller-coaster emotions that come with being a teenager: “Chet had to write to her. Or she would disappear into a black, hopeless abyss.” The theme does get overworked, however, and readers may tire of Francie’s self-absorption; at times, she seems more embarrassed by her dad than worried about him. Also overworked to the point of tedium are sentence fragments and many sentences beginning with “And.” It’s meant to convey urgency and drama, but overuse robs the technique of effect. A screenwriter and film editor, Schubert uses her insider knowledge well to provide an intriguing background for Francie, friends, and family among the nonfamous entertainment world of struggling bands and costume assistants. Another plus—Chet and Eddie aren’t black hat/white hat romantic choices but complex individuals.
A well-described setting adds strength to this coming-of-age novel.Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9985202-0-9
Page Count: 316
Publisher: Earnest Parc Press
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
BOOK TO SCREEN
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