A fast-paced, straightforward character study that blends humor and pathos.
A novel of human foibles and near redemption.
Tim Hoskings has been slogging through the same miserable routine for years: Wake up, grind through traffic, work a soulless job, come home to a decent if not passionate relationship, maybe go out and drink too much with his friend Todd. In the course of one week, however, Tim’s life turns upside down. Kicked out of his house for cheating and fired from his job for punching a colleague, Tim decides to clean up his act and figure out what’s really important. First up is apologizing to Derek, the man Tim slugged in the office. But, far from a straightforward meeting, Tim’s attempt lands him in a world of unfamiliar sexual practices, near tragedies, love where he least expects it and even a tattoo. Along this journey with Derek and his friend Cassandra, Tim finds himself embroiled in a plot to avenge Cassandra’s just-deceased foster mother, whose birth son, Peter, has been stealing money from her for years. Amusingly, this plan involves Tim and Derek’s participation in a porn shoot at Peter’s studio, as well as a panicked getaway. When he returns, there’s even more chaos on the home front. Tim soon begins to discover that the path to balance and happiness may, occasionally, mean getting a little crazy. Debut authorAllen has crafted a convincingly flawed protagonist whose mistakes and attempts at recompense fuel an entertaining plot. While some of the supporting characters are two-dimensional, readers will appreciate the well-tuned dialogue and unexpected settings (an S&M club, an old woman’s painting studio, the aforementioned porn shoot). While this is no in-depth investigation of the human soul, the reader will come away with a new appreciation for the lines between safe and staid, between out of control and experimental.
A fast-paced, straightforward character study that blends humor and pathos.Pub Date: May 21, 2014
ISBN: 978-1483411866
Page Count: 226
Publisher: Lulu
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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