by Paul Stanley Michaelson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 22, 2013
Some readers might wish for more time on the island, but there’ll be no complaints about this breezy, quick read that can be...
A woman’s plea for help leads two grad students to a remote island that may hold the secret to infinite youth in the author’s latest thriller (Murder in the Valley of the Kings, 2013, etc.).
Hamnet “Ham” Andrews and Al Blake arrive in Maui for the International Conference on the Research of Aging. While relaxing on a private beach, Ham finds a message in a bottle from movie star Lona LeMonte, who’s yearning for rescue from the tropical island of Romosa, where she’s being held captive. Once there, Ham and Al realize that Romosa is special—Lona looks 30-ish but should be closer to 100 years of age—but aren’t aware that Dr. Richardson sees them as a threat and wants assurance that the two never leave alive. Michaelson’s novel is a diverting romp that’s equal parts romance and suspense, particularly when the doctor sends his henchman, Nabilac, to dispose of the two young men in what he hopes will look like accidents. The story, which clocks in at under 200 pages, might have benefitted from further details; prior to Ham and Al’s arrival on Romosa, Lona and aviator Penelope are both given extensive back stories, and though both had disappeared during separate flights, there’s no elucidation on how the ladies found the island. The two lead characters are appealing, since, after all, they go to great lengths to sail to Romosa and save a woman they’ve never met (though her promised fortune is good incentive). But their apparent immaturity can be vexing: “Awesome” is their preferred adjective, and Al’s endless swine-inspired nicknames for Ham come across as obnoxious, even if Ham is unfazed by them (“pig testicles” is an especially cruel one). Michaelson’s approach to the topic of eternal youth is refreshingly understated—there’s little talk of the island residents’ unmistakable lack of aging, so the potential fate of any resident who leaves Romosa is a mere implication and is only answered if and when it actually happens.
Some readers might wish for more time on the island, but there’ll be no complaints about this breezy, quick read that can be enjoyed in an afternoon.Pub Date: Nov. 22, 2013
ISBN: 978-1490974651
Page Count: 202
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Hanya Yanagihara ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2015
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
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Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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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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