Wearying fluff.
News flash: Many men are afraid of commitment.
David, the protagonist of the second novel by Mebus (Booty Nomad, 2004), is a young Manhattanite whose ambition is surpassed only by his shallow self-regard. He jettisoned a lucrative career in TV production to concentrate on his novel, which is inspired by his last breakup, and he bemoans the fact that his friends are doing crazy stuff like hooking up and settling down. (Clearly they ought to be living a lifestyle more like his, which involves collecting rejection letters, occupying a shoebox apartment and being barely competent at his weekend job as a wedding deejay.) David adores his tribe for being “sarcastic, overly intellectual, competitive smart-asses,” so he’s pained by the transformation of his friend Annie, who’s engaged to a decent fellow David takes to calling Rat Boy. He dubs another friend’s girlfriend Donkey Girl, and pretty quickly it’s clear that anybody who enjoys conjuring up infantile nicknames for his friends’ significant others is the guy with the problem. But though Mebus acknowledges that David could stand to grow up a little, he’s oddly confident that this egotistical, emotionally stunted fool is some kind of hero. The snark just keeps on coming, with David stubbornly cracking wise about his quirky (but less-brilliant) friends and family members. His love interest is a woman named Janey who waitresses at many of the weddings at which David deejays, and she’s interested in getting into TV production and—well, enough about Janey, what about David’s needs? The plot centers less on any would-be romance than on David’s efforts to wreck the relationship between Annie and Rat Boy with the help of Zach, who’s a stereotype twofer (trust-fund brat; promiscuous gay man). David eventually reaches the stunning conclusion that maybe, just maybe, people are allowed to make choices others may disagree with; most people could figure that out without being fed 300-plus pages of bad jokes.
Wearying fluff.Pub Date: June 21, 2006
ISBN: 1-4013-5256-1
Page Count: 384
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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