Rosa’s collection has moments of insight, but readers may struggle through a fog to find the nuggets.
Rosa (Zeke Thompson, American Hero, 2010, etc.) presents a series of short stories that address a wide variety of subject matter.
Rosa clearly writes from the heart, drafting prose with a passion and intensity indicative of an author who believes strongly in what she has to say. Her use of settings is powerful and rich, vividly bringing to life the varied locales of her stories. She covers an assortment of topics including child abuse, life after death, the power of God, teen death, family loyalty, war and, oddly enough, random cat antics and excrement-covered iPads. The overall theme of the collection is hard to discern, if there is one. Rosa’s narrative often includes not-so-subtle political, social or religious commentary, which creates a heavy-handed feel in places. Several of the tales (“The Promise,” “Sent”) are positive affirmations about life after death and how those we lose are always with us, and it’s a lovely reprieve to discover those two stories are written clearly enough to understand and enjoy them. Some of the vignettes, however, are a confusing maze of different points of views, inadequate back story and limited setup that make them a challenge to decipher. “Silent Hero” is a short but powerful look into the impact a teen’s death can have on the community, but the story scratches at the surface rather then plunging into the emotional intensity of the experience. One of the most interesting parts of the book is the concluding Acknowledgments section, in which the writing is finally straightforward and fluid, giving the reader insight into the back story and intended meanings of many of these stories.
Rosa’s collection has moments of insight, but readers may struggle through a fog to find the nuggets.Pub Date: Nov. 22, 2011
ISBN: 978-1453791271
Page Count: 170
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these...
Figuratively and literally shattering moments of hoRRRRRipilication in Chamberlain, Maine where stones fly from the sky rather than from the hands of the villagers (as they did in "The Lottery," although the latter are equal to other forms of persecution).
All beginning when Carrie White discovers a gift with telekinetic powers (later established as a genetic fact), after she menstruates in full ignorance of the process and thinks she is bleeding to death while the other monsters in the high school locker room bait and bully her mercilessly. Carrie is the only child of a fundamentalist freak mother who has brought her up with a concept of sin which no blood of the Lamb can wash clean. In addition to a sympathetic principal and gym teacher, there's one girl who wishes to atone and turns her date for the spring ball over to Carrie who for the first time is happy, beautiful and acknowledged as such. But there will be hell to pay for this success—not only her mother but two youngsters who douse her in buckets of fresh-killed pig blood so that Carrie once again uses her "wild talent," flexes her mind and a complete catastrophe (explosion and an uncontrolled fire) virtually destroys the town.
King handles his first novel with considerable accomplishment and very little hokum—it's only too easy to believe that these youngsters who once ate peanut butter now scrawl "Carrie White eats shit." But as they still say around here, "Sit a spell and collect yourself."Pub Date: April 8, 1974
ISBN: 0385086954
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1974
PERSPECTIVES
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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