Sloppy writing, misogynistic themes.
Sensational urban crime story set in Harlem.
Shareef Crawford was raised on some of Harlem’s toughest streets. Instead of joining his crew of friends in a lifetime of illicit pursuits and gangster escapades, Shareef escapes the neighborhood and heads to college. Thanks to perseverance and a heavy dose of ambition, Shareef transforms from a punk into a highly successful African-American writer. Yet despite his career achievements and glorious Florida lifestyle, Shareef is miserable. Escape can’t come soon enough for this spoiled playboy, and he gladly leaves his disgruntled wife, needy kids and demanding mistress to promote his books and seek out new conquests. Ever the solipsist, Shareef is wonderful at rationalizing his misanthropic behavior and self-indulgent lifestyle. While on a book tour in New York City, his pleasure cruise hits some rough waters when a gorgeous fan lands in his lap. After he beds her, she plants a book idea in his head, challenging him to write the story of her friend, a major player who’s doing time for his crimes. The idea resonates with Shareef. He’s been struggling to break out of his tightly cast role as romance author and attract more male readers, and he’s in no rush to reconcile with his wife. Shareef sets about working the streets in Harlem and researching the current leaders in the underground scene. But Shareef’s poking around lands him in serious trouble. Warring factions don’t appreciate his efforts to expose the inner working of their syndicates. Bullets start flying and instead of hunting down a good story, Shareef fights for his life. Tyree (What They Want, 2006, etc.) labors to capture the vernacular of the hip-hop set, and it appear as though he is sweating over each segment of dialogue, resulting in stilted prose and a story that repeatedly stalls.
Sloppy writing, misogynistic themes.Pub Date: July 2, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-4165-4184-4
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2007
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
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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