by Pat Rahmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 26, 2006
A meandering and unremarkable examination of one woman’s changing opinions on the conflict in Vietnam.
As the Vietnam war looms, one American army wife negotiates the delicate balance of raising a family overseas, representing her country while still remaining true to herself in this low-intensity, character-driven novel.
Lane Goodwyn, born and raised an army brat and now married to a rising star in the U.S. Army, is thrilled to learn that her husband Buck’s new assignment will send the family to Bangkok. Over the course of their more than two-year stay, the family settles in with Thais as well as fellow expats and military families, although Lane’s persistent tendency to judge and compare others keeps popping up randomly as first-person internal monologue within the third-person narrative. Adventures abound with Lane getting involved in a school-building effort and a short trip to Cambodia with her friend Martha, raising Lane’s awareness of the cultural divide between Americans and Thais as well as the increasing military activity in the region. Surrounded by stock characters (the all-American Buck, her golden-boy Army major brother, her consistently well-behaved children), Lane’s frustrating lack of emotion (her response to a phone call that her brother’s been wounded is met simply with “Oh”) reinforces a frustrating distance between reader and story. A number of promising subplots–the disappearance of a local businessman, Lane’s visit to a respected astrologer who offers tantalizing predictions and her sudden flashbacks to a chance encounter with a female laborer in the stairwell of a Bangkok hotel–are introduced throughout, only to disappear from the narrative quietly without having a significant effect on the overall story arc. Vivid descriptions of life and culture in Bangkok give the novel a boost in light of low-key conflict and drama that revolves around Lane’s growing disenchantment with the idea of military conflict in Vietnam and her desire to see her husband have no part in it, ending with a resolution that’s pat yet in keeping with the rest of the tale.
A meandering and unremarkable examination of one woman’s changing opinions on the conflict in Vietnam.Pub Date: Oct. 26, 2006
ISBN: 978-1-4257-2855-7
Page Count: 237
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: April 7, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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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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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