Eye-opening and deeply moving—essential for anyone looking for decency in the world today.
Turkey’s wildly disparate and clashing cultures, from isolated Muslim fundamentalism to jaded secularism, collide in this romantic yet clear-eyed translation from a noted Turkish composer and politician, now a member of that country’s Parliament.
Her village family ostracizes teenage Meryem after she is raped. When her older cousin Cemal returns from fighting in the Turkish army against the Kurds, his father, the family’s religious leader (and Meryem’s secret rapist), orders him to take Meryem to Istanbul and make her “disappear,” the typical fate of defiled village girls. Meryem innocently enjoys the journey to Istanbul, unaware of Cemal’s orders. To his mortification, Cemal cannot bring himself to kill Meryem. His army buddy Selahattin, a devout Muslim and genuinely good man, shows Cemal that the Koran can be interpreted as promoting love and peace, not vengeance. Meanwhile, Irfan, a professor with a TV show and a rich wife, escapes the meaningless of his life in Istanbul by sailing the Aegean Sea in an old boat. He hires Meryem and Cemal as his crew and introduces them to modern ways. Drawn to her budding intelligence, Irfan teaches Meryem to read. As Meryem blossoms, Cemal grows resentful, yet he, too, loses his desire to return to his father’s village. Tensions rise in an idyllic seaside village where they stay with a former ambassador who has withdrawn to his orange orchard to escape the ugliness he has witnessed in the world. Meryem falls in with a kind family who run a restaurant. Cemal and Irfan confront each other with truths neither wants to face. Irfan sails away after giving Meryem all his money. She goes to the restaurant full of hope, leaving Cemal to find his own way. Livaneli deftly folds his philosophical and political questioning into the psychology of his characters.
Eye-opening and deeply moving—essential for anyone looking for decency in the world today.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2006
ISBN: 0-312-36053-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 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
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
