Bahahahaha.
The life of Julie Feller as seen through three decades of letters and emails from her family.
Born in the New Yorker’s “Shouts and Murmurs” column, Fogel’s debut starts with a letter sent to summer camp by her protagonist’s father, a neurologist with a dopey sense of humor, followed by an apology note from her mother the psychoanalyst. The heroine of this epistolary novel is revealed wholly through letters, with titles that are part of the joke: “Your Sister Said Something Racist to Your Dad’s New Girlfriend,” “Your Hot Cousin Paul and His Friends Might Want to Chill Later,” “Your Grandma Rose is Really Looking Forward to Her Son’s Gay Beach Wedding,” and “Your Mom Wanted to Run Her First Yelp Review By You,” among others. We follow the Fellers and their running gags through three decades of correspondence. Highlights: her father’s attitude toward her “career” writing celebrity stories for the Huffington Post; her mother's inability to understand computer basics and frequent trips to the Apple Store; her wacky sister, the star of the book, who writes in text-speak: “Heya, Just tried to leave u a voice mail but I think yr phone is dead. Or u are probably busy w/ mom helping her make arrangements for the funeral ugh.” “Anyway I don’t think u got much of a chance to talk to Bridger cuz you had yr hands full with mom (omg when she was singing along and dancing to that ‘aint no mountain high enough aint no valley low enough’ song and everyone was like GO BARBARA! GO BARBARA!...)” The letters from Julie’s NordicTrack, her dead gerbil, and her IUD remind us that some “Shouts and Murmurs” columns are kind of dumb, and the letters from Dad’s Chinese second wife themselves seem vaguely racist, or at least politically incorrect, but u prob won’t mind b/c other parts are so funny.
Bahahahaha.Pub Date: July 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62779-793-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2017
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
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