by Susan Jedren ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1994
A rollicking, spunky first novel featuring a single mother struggling to survive in the urban '90s. On the rare occasions when Anna Ferrara has a chance to think about her life, she can't believe the fix she's in. A 24-year-old with no job experience, two young boys, a recent divorce, and no child support payments, she's forced to scour all of New York City just for a chance to join the working poor. The job she finds- -delivering Homemade Cakes to seedy bodegas by the Brooklyn docks- -comes with a Teamsters union card and the likelihood that she'll be mugged or raped on any one of her daily rounds. But Anna, who was unwanted by her mother, abused by her father, and then betrayed by her philandering husband, has been a scrapper all her life; she manages to get by for a while with helpful friends and an occasional cathartic workout on the local handball court. Soon enough, though, the sexism she encounters at work, her sons' increasingly difficult behavior (they cut up their clothes with scissors, steal from her friends, etc.), her boyfriends' unwillingness to commit, and her empty bank account combine to wear her down. The all-too-human Anna begins mimicking her male colleagues by regularly cheating even those of her customers who've proven kind. When her lover returns to his wife, she finally goes off the deep end, wrecking a borrowed car on the FDR Drive and nearly killing herself and her children. The accident forces Anna to admit how chaotic her life has become; taking the advice of a convenient, fairy-godmotherlike Manhattan mentor, she begins to find a way out of her life's terrible mess. Less a fully realized novel than the hasty confessions of a spirited woman next door fighting to get through another day. Nonetheless, heartbreaking.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-679-43361-9
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1994
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 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
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