by Reba Birmingham ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2017
A necessary feminist and LGBTQ fantasy that gets lost in convoluted storytelling.
The lives of two lesbian couples are turned upside down when one of the women is apparently kidnapped into a world of magic in this contemporary fantasy novel.
Tax preparer Panda Fowler thinks that the most stressful thing in her life is the April 15 tax deadline to file her clients’ 1040s. She’s a bit of a stick in the mud, but her loving wife, Mitzi Fowler, and their two married best friends, Valerie and Juniper Gooden, drag her out of her office to an art show for some much-needed fun. Then Panda and Mitzi start finding cryptic invitations to a place called the Hercynian Forest—and then Mitzi goes missing. An elf appears, who lets them know that Mitzi is in the aforementioned forest, in Germany, ostensibly to help protect the elves there. The women mount a rescue mission, and guardian elves help them travel overseas. Yet trouble is brewing back in their hometown of Merryville, California; the police are looking into Mitzi’s disappearance and suspect Panda of foul play. Can Panda find the courage to rescue her wife? And if she does, will their lives ever be the same? In this first novel in a projected fantasy series, debut novelist Birmingham’s LGBTQ representation among the cast is refreshing. She parallels the fictional cult with the patriarchy, and she compares interspecies relationships in the fantasy world with LGBTQ relationships in ours. But although gay couples abound in both the human and magical worlds, the characters get lost in a complicated plot that doesn’t do justice to its feminist themes. Again and again, the story falls into tropes and clichés; the villain is affably evil, harming his henchmen and smiling cruelly while he plots world domination, and Birmingham’s protagonists engage in fluff dialogue—with phrases such as “Let’s roll!” or “Spill it” and “Back atcha”—that cause all four leads to begin to sound the same. It doesn’t help that Birmingham divides her attention between the plot to stop the cult and the ongoing police investigation in Merryville, which also involves an art museum and local corruption.
A necessary feminist and LGBTQ fantasy that gets lost in convoluted storytelling.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-61929-344-1
Page Count: -
Publisher: Mystic Books by Rce
Review Posted Online: Jan. 20, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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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