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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
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BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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