A promising concept from a talented writer, though the novel fails to deliver.
A high school trip to Washington, D.C., borders on bacchanal in Benincasa’s (Great, 2014, etc.) new novel.
Alicia Deats, a rookie teacher at Flemington High School, has no idea what she's getting herself into when she volunteers to chaperone the sophomore class trip. Though only 23 years old, she’s a hippie holdover, decked out in flowing skirts, political T-shirts, and Birkenstock sandals. Her motivations for signing up to chaperone, however, have little to do with the well-being of her students and more to do with the fact that Brian Kenner, the dreamy yet aloof math teacher, will be along for the ride. Much of the drama that occurs on the trip—including drug use, vicious fighting, and breaking curfew—occurs at the hands of two groups of rival teen girls. The action follows Rachel, Gertie, and Sivan—a tightknit though oddly matched group—as they sneak out after dark to try to make contact with Gertie’s crush from summer camp, who just happens to be in D.C. Along the way, they face off repeatedly with Brooklynn, Peighton, and Kaylee, the members of an enemy clique. The other students are mostly filler, though there are some touching scenes between the nerdy Carter Bump and the handsome and popular Brock Chuddford. The story of what occurs on the trip is framed within two emails sent by Alicia eight years later, an unnecessary structural choice that distances the reader. While Benincasa is well-known as a comedian, much of the humor feels contrived. The wordplay falls flat as many characters end up sounding the same: crass and sarcastic. Despite the dependence on a wide array of swear words, the teenage storyline feels juvenile, while the teachers’ comes across as uneven.
A promising concept from a talented writer, though the novel fails to deliver.Pub Date: Nov. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-9960666-3-1
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Adaptive Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 16, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
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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