Chica-lit to be savored in small bites.
Never calling themselves Latinas or Hispanics or hyphenated anythings, the Mexican-Americans in a southern California town enjoy the hell out of pretty much everything in a slangy, self-assured debut.
Best girlfriends Natalie Stevens and Consuelo “Sway” Gonzales Contreras, a couple of cuties in their 20s are at the heart of things in this confection, but they share the stage with a fairly large cast of ghosts, whores, evangelical mariachi musicians, day laborers, transvestites, and a volcano as an eventful summer elapses in Lava Landing, a community miles from the news but not far from the Mexican border. Nat and Sway work, not too awfully hard, in a cheese factory, spending their off-hours shopping, getting their hair done, cruising in Nat’s Caddy convertible, flirting, and problem solving. One problem that’s stumped them so far is Consuelo’s fear of public transportation, a phobia linked to the tragic death of her father Don Pancho, who met his end one boozy evening back in Mexico when his truck stalled on the railroad tracks. Don Pancho’s ghost pops up time and again, seeking help getting out of Purgatory and visiting the many ladies in his earthly life. While the girls put their agile minds to Don Pancho’s problem, their friend and grade-school classmate Javier, a virginal, born-again musician, tries to reconcile his lust for the loose and lovely Lucha with his religious code, and Lulabelle, Javier’s mum, tries to decide whether to break her decades-long pact with the devil and give up all the household maintenance and yard break she’s been getting from studly day laborers in trade for her sexual favors. True-Dee, everybody’s favorite beautician, has all she can handle seeking advice from agony aunts about a sex change, organizing her annual Tupperware party, and, finally, getting involved with a gang of crypto-vulcanologists. Everybody dances when there’s a little bit of time, and there’s always something interesting to eat. It’s all totally inconsequential and a great deal of fun.
Chica-lit to be savored in small bites.Pub Date: April 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-375-41375-8
Page Count: 366
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2004
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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