Although competently done, this quirky novel can also seem airless and charmless.
What did Molly tell her biology teacher that caused her family to split apart?
The power of the word looms over Salway’s determinedly offbeat second novel (after The ABCs of Love, 2004), a mystery story of a kind in which Molly Drayton, an unusual, sometimes furious, overweight young woman with a shaded past settles into a new life working in a stationery shop. But what happened beforehand to turn “the most popular girl at school” into a recluse? Answers must wait while Molly establishes her new living and social arrangements. Her quietly lecherous but harmless boss, Mr. Roberts, pays her to rearrange the shelves while she perches on a ladder telling him suggestive stories; chic Mrs. Roberts and Molly’s hairdresser friend Miranda help improve Molly’s grooming; and in the park, her strange and secretive boyfriend Tim delivers delicious kisses but also mentions hearing voices. Meanwhile, Liz at the library guides Molly’s reading, introducing her to Colette, whose work will inspire new tales for Mr. Roberts. As Molly’s confidence grows, she harms herself less, starts to lose weight and believes that Tim is going to take care of her, something she craves. But Tim isn’t well and neither perhaps is Molly. Eventually, the truth about her past emerges in one of her stories: Her fury at her oppressive father led her to tell exaggerated tales of his abuse to her teacher, who called in social services. Now, in a last, well-intentioned burst, Molly turns pro-active, putting an end to Miranda’s foolish fantasies and finishing off Mr. Roberts (who has a weak heart) with a story of sexual sadism, thereby securing Mrs. Roberts’s and her own financial future. A lightly told, somewhat comic but darkly claustrophobic story of disturbed and disturbing empowerment in an odd neighborhood.
Although competently done, this quirky novel can also seem airless and charmless.Pub Date: Nov. 28, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-48100-3
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2006
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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