Searing action and drama, but truly a story of friends whose impacts on one another are profound and permanent.
In Palmer’s urban drama debut, the close friendship between two California teens forever intertwines their lives and culminates in violence.
David Hill was one of the bullies who tormented nerd Israel Baylock, but Israel earns David’s respect when he fights back. The two become friends in high school, and David is soon a regular in the Baylock household—which is perfect for David, since he’s enamored with Israel’s beautiful older sister, Ellena. David’s gang affiliation fractures his eventual relationship with Ellena, but their tenacious love and son, Michael, keep them in close ties. Israel, meanwhile, joins the Marines and disappears in Europe, only to resurface in the U.S. years later. It seems he’s come back just in time: Ellena’s LAPD officer husband, Sean, has revealed too much of his illicit behavior, and a batch of dirty cops hopes to silence Ellena and anyone she loves. David and the now physically adept Israel must protect their family at all costs. Though it boasts impressive action in its final act, Palmer’s story is less an action novel than a potent drama with violent sequences. Palmer deftly concentrates on David’s difficult life and relationship with Ellena. He’s not a likable protagonist; his selling crack in college while on an athletic scholarship, for one, puts later troubles squarely on his shoulders. But he’s softened by his genuine love for Michael, while his struggles with Ellena, who abandons him when he’s arrested, are believably frayed. Israel, David’s counterpart, is shrouded in mystery; little is known of his time in Amsterdam, and he returns to America to escape potential fallback for lethal vengeance against a murderer. The book is, at times, vicious, especially Israel’s bone-crunching brutality against the cops threatening his family. There’s likewise an abundance of racial epithets, mainly the N-word, repeated frequently and used casually, sans animosity, among predominantly black characters. The lengthy confrontation near the end is interrupted by an extensive flashback that works surprisingly well, both as a breather and further examination of how each friend, for better or worse, has been shaped by the other. The ending, too, is a stunner sure to reverberate with readers.
Searing action and drama, but truly a story of friends whose impacts on one another are profound and permanent.Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2015
ISBN: 978-1500346560
Page Count: 320
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 18, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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