A light, accessible coming-of-age story well-suited for beach and romance fans.
A novel follows a young woman in the 1960s who dates all the wrong guys as she bungles her way into adulthood.
Ali Abrams is a young college graduate whose family spends its summers on idyllic Fire Island. The clan’s tranquility is threatened by the actions of urban developer Robert Moses, who wants to commandeer the island for his own purposes. Amid this political strife, Ali struggles to find her own place in her social, family, and professional life. Ali falls hard for an older man on the island, a singer by the name of Nick Rose. Nick indulges Ali with a few dalliances, but he is clearly less than committed. Ali eventually moves on, developing relationships with one ill-suited man after another. First there is bad boy Eric London, who can’t keep his eyes from wandering, and then a long string of one-night stands and short-lived romances. After watching Ali stumble with one man after another, her friend Jordan Kaplan accuses her of acting like Scarlett O’Hara, squandering the affection of the only man who is truly devoted to her (Jordan himself). He convinces Ali to see a therapist to deal with her self-destructive behavior. The therapist persuades Ali to take a hiatus from her fruitless dating and focus on herself and her burgeoning advertising career. As she travels between Park Avenue and Fire Island, Manhattan offices and island cocktail parties, the reader can only hope that Ali will get out of her own way and attain personal happiness. The book delivers plenty of vibrant historical details about Fire Island, Manhattan, New York City socialites, and the ad industry of the ’60s. At one point, Ali rhapsodizes about the Rainbow Room (“Breathtaking. Magical. Sophisticated. Art deco. Big band orchestra live, revolving dance floor, wraparound views of the glittering skyline, the Hudson, the Statue of Liberty. It defined elegance and romance right out of a Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers movie”). But Israelson’s (co-author of Lovesick: The Marilyn Syndrome, 1991, etc.) tale is as much about one woman’s personal journey as it is about the pressure to be desirable, to find love, and to conform to society’s expectations. Although Ali’s poor choices start to feel repetitive and frustrating as the story progresses, the accessible prose should keep readers turning pages in the anticipation that Ali will finally find fulfillment.
A light, accessible coming-of-age story well-suited for beach and romance fans.Pub Date: July 20, 2017
ISBN: 9780999004302
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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