A heartbreaking commentary on the importance of making sound choices.
A down-on-her-luck divorcée falls for a younger guy and faces one disaster after another.
This second installment of The Dangerous Things Trilogy continues to tell the story of hapless Hester Randal. Following the catastrophic demise of her marriage in the first novel (On the Edge of Dangerous Things, 2013), middle-aged Hester is now single, broke, unemployable, and effectively homeless. In order to make ends meet, she is forced to sell many of the valuable belongings she has acquired over the years. She ends up at a flea market in Lambertville, New Jersey, where she sells her treasures for far less than they are worth. The strapping young owner of the flea market, Jimmy Raymer, takes pity on Hester, his altruism culminating in their drunken lovemaking in the back of a van. In his post-coital guilt, Jimmy offers Hester lodging in the closet of his office at the flea market. Meanwhile, Jimmy reunites with his ex-fiancee, Cecilia Kurts, a woman who brings nothing but misery to Hester’s already complicated life. As Hester tries to navigate her personal difficulties, her relationship with Jimmy and Cecilia grows increasingly precarious, and the reader fears for Hester’s sanity as well as her safety. In this raw and gritty sequel, Snyder-Carroll (Click…Kill, 2015, etc.) unapologetically details Hester’s many mistakes and miscalculations, decisions that repeatedly sabotage the character’s own happiness. The writing is chock-full of rich imagery and cringeworthy descriptions of the deterioration of Hester’s physical appearance and personal hygiene as she battles poverty (at one point, she muses about “rummaging through the trash and sleeping in the same clothes for a couple of weeks now”). With a character-driven plot and fast-paced storyline, the tale should easily keep readers engaged. Despite the accessible nature of the narrative style, the book tackles many weighty topics in this sobering story, ranging from mental health issues and sexual identity to infertility, blended families, and child custody. Suspenseful situations and improbable hope should keep readers turning pages as they race to determine whether Hester will ever manage to get anything right. Loose ends abound at the tale’s conclusion, leaving plenty of room for the next installment.
A heartbreaking commentary on the importance of making sound choices.Pub Date: Nov. 28, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-5008-6120-9
Page Count: 266
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Feb. 7, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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