A distinctive but flawed entry in the annals of female sexual apologia.
Already a slightly scandalous bestseller throughout the Arab world, this provocative novel makes its American debut.
An unnamed Syrian narrator working in a Paris library develops a reputation as a specialist in antique Arabian erotica. An invitation to speak on this subject at a conference serves as a prompt for languorous and learned memories of her varied sexual experiences. Al Neimi exploits the tension between fundamentalist Islam, in which a woman’s sexuality is strictly controlled, and classical Islam, in which female desire is a divine gift and the ecstasy of sex is a preview of paradise. Resurrecting lost treatises on lovemaking as she describes a heroine awakening to pleasure, the author gestures beyond the confines of her narrative to make a plea for a more liberated attitude toward sex in contemporary Arab society. It’s a noble effort and, judging by the book’s sales in Arabic, a welcome one. But activist sincerity does not necessarily make for compelling fiction, and this unimpeachably worthy tract is not much of a novel. Erudition can be erotic, but here the philosophical musings and graphic interludes are awkwardly conjoined: “First, a certain flash of eyes, then my reply, categorical. I feel my answer rising in the first instant, even before the suitor presents letters of accreditation for his lust.” Perhaps it’s a problem of translation, but lines like that just aren’t very sexy.
A distinctive but flawed entry in the annals of female sexual apologia.Pub Date: May 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-933372-68-6
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Europa Editions
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2009
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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