First adult novel by a children's author who already sells better than Stephen King, with 45 million copies in print of his 56 titles: a serial-killer suspense story that turns into romantic horror. Stine's tale opens with a strong shock as a young woman has her scalp ripped off, spine cracked, eyes thumbed out, and insides removed; then it lapses into a kind of depthless, mirror-smooth chitchat somewhere between YA and adult levels made up before your very eyes and not bearing a second thought. Sara Morgan, 24, has lost her Manhattan job at Concord Publishing, split from her psychotic boyfriend Chip, and returned to Moore State College to earn a grad degree in psychology. At a seafood restaurant with her close friend Mary Beth Logan, she meets handsome, charming, superstition-ridden Liam O'Connor, visiting professor of folklore. He's a Daniel Day-Lewis look-alike who lives with his sister Margaret and definitely is flirting with Sara. Then Milton Cohn, dean of students, a self-amused body-builder and knife collector who's always cutting his hands, offers Sara a part-time job largely because of her big breasts (such are the book's plot ploys). Soon more bodies drop and insides spill, including those of Liam's old girlfriend from Chicago as well as Chip's from Manhattan. The irresistible Liam comes onto Sara like Maxim de Winter roping in the second Mrs. de Winter, insistently charming and marrying her. On his bad tongue days, a huge purple three-foot tongue with a mind of its own slithers out of him. But who sends Sara four bloody rabbit's feet warning her about Liam? And Margaret and Milton, well, very special things happen to them. A face-off with Liam's demons of superstition is as foreseeable as steam on a rainy window. With zillions of aging young readers awaiting his newest work, Stine's may be just the fresh-flowing jolt of harmless horror pap to turn cash registers rhapsodic. (Film rights to Miramax; author tour)
Pub Date: Sept. 14, 1995
ISBN: 0-446-51953-7
Page Count: 384
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 1995
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
