IT'S NOT WHAT YOU EXPECT

by Norma Klein ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1973

Most immediately this is the story of how fourteen-year-old narrator Carla and her twin brother Oliver, a gourmet cook, conceive and -- with a little help from a few young friends -- successfully operate a French restaurant during their summer vacation. The season brings its unexpected problems -- the twins' older brother's gift friend gets pregnant and has an abortion, Dad moves into a ""bachelor"" apartment in New York but returns at the end of the summer (probably, the twins decide, he has some catching up to do as Mom was, incredibly, the first girl he slept with) -- but the restaurant is an unqualified success from start to finish. It's a little hard to reconcile the restaurant's function as pure daydream fulfillment with the sexual concerns and marital problems that are obviously intended as realistic, just as it's sometimes hard to remember that Klein is writing for children when she describes Carla's mother or Oliver's madeleines (""These are like butter cookies, only better. They are supposed to carry you back to your childhood""). But the author of Morn, The Wolf Man and Me (KR 1972) has a way of making it all sound natural and mildly interesting for older children who like their vacation fantasies with a sophisticated contemporary flavor.

Pub Date: April 1, 1973

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Pantheon

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1973

Categories: FICTION