by Patricia Weitz ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 2009
A deft, modest coming-of-age tale from debut author Weitz.
Fragile coed with working-class roots struggles to come out of her shell during her last year at an East Coast university.
Pretty and smart (even though she has trouble seeing it), 20-year-old Natalie Bloom has managed to make it to her senior year at UConn with an impressive GPA—and her virginity intact. Good grades are paramount to the Russian history major, who is the youngest of seven children, none of whom except her made it to college. Natalie is a transfer from a community college, making her a bit out of step with the cool kids on campus. Everything changes when she reluctantly agrees to start seeing lanky, Saab-driving Patrick. At first he behaves like an interested beau, but after they have sex, he begins basically using her for her body. Natalie becomes obsessed with him, and her self-esteem, never strong to begin with, plummets. Distracted and ill-equipped to handle her conflicting emotions, she watches helplessly as her grades suffer. Rebuffing the kindhearted professor and classmates who try to reach out, Natalie behaves erratically: She starts to smoke and crops off her long dark hair in an effort to be “ugly.” Her self-destructiveness reaches a moment of epiphany during winter break when, after a particularly humiliating episode with Patrick, she realizes how much of her experience has been colored by the suicide of her beloved older brother Jacob. Her only hope for happiness is to change the dysfunctional patterns of her life. Both cringe-worthy and compelling, self-absorbed Natalie will remind many readers of their own awkward youth. The depiction of her closed-off, emotionally abusive blue-collar family, however, is at times too broad.
A deft, modest coming-of-age tale from debut author Weitz.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-59448-853-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Riverhead
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2008
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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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