by Norris Church Mailer ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2000
Nicely rendered details of southern small-town life in the ’60s, but a debut that tries to do and be too much.
An ambitious, if overplotted, coming-of-ager chronicles the summer of ’69, when a murder in a small Arkansas town is connected to the Vietnam War and leads to unsettling revelations.
The story is told mainly by Cherry, a gangly blond college senior, but characters now dead also tell their tales and, by adding their explications of the plot, often undercut the drama. Cherry, born and raised in Sweet Valley, where liquor can be sold only in members-only clubs, revival services are popular, and people marry young, is not sure she wants to stay on after college. Working for the summer at the local pickling plant, she and best friend Baby plan to teach when they graduate; meantime, however, they’re ready for fun and new experiences. The narrative picks up as Tripp Barlow, a handsome Vietnam vet, arrives in town the night Carlene, a former classmate of Cherry and Baby’s, is murdered. Cherry soon learns that Tripp knew war casualty Jerry Golden, the boy Carlene loved. While Carlene and Jerry tell their stories from the grave, Cherry falls in love with Tripp, experiments with pot, and goes to movies her pastor condemns. Too loving a daughter to lose her way, she understands that the summer might be the break she needs before settling down. Baby, though, whose family is from the Philippines, has led a less sheltered life, and, as the summer progresses she’s torn between seductive businessman Jackie and Bean, her long-time boyfriend who drinks too much, is abusive, and has had terrible nightmares since serving in Vietnam. By end, a stash of Jerry’s letters reveals that Tripp participated in the My Lai massacre, the murderer of Carlene is found, and a wiser Cherry is ready for fall and the future.
Nicely rendered details of southern small-town life in the ’60s, but a debut that tries to do and be too much.Pub Date: June 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-375-50319-6
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2000
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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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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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