Witty, mournful and a shade sentimental, but in the main persuasively told.
Mutual fragility marks a cross-cultural love story that turns tragic in this debut novel from memoirist DeWoskin (Foreign Babes in Beijing, 2005).
The author takes her time exposing the truth about her two central characters: Aysha Silvermintz and Da Ge. Aysha appears at first an ordinary, if slightly hyper ESL teacher with a quick wit. When she finds herself attracted to Da Ge, a new Chinese student in her class, the impulse seems inappropriate. Then again, Aysha was not always—and may not now be—very stable. She has long carried a burden of guilt for the failure of her parents’ marriage; she displays a range of neurotic tics; and she only recently survived a nervous breakdown. Surly and secretive Da Ge slowly reveals that he too has a troubled past, which includes a mother who committed suicide, as well as a complicated attitude toward his country. He asks Aysha to marry him for the visa; she says yes because she loves him. Their union has moments of delight, but it is also marked by Da Ge’s absences and unpredictable behavior. The story is narrated 13 years later by a less manic, more socially engaged Aysha. She is now living in Beijing with her bilingual daughter Julia Too. Da Ge is dead. The circumstances surrounding his demise are teased out at some length, and the novel’s resolution verges on the excessively sweet.
Witty, mournful and a shade sentimental, but in the main persuasively told.Pub Date: May 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-59020-222-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Overlook
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2009
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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