bookshelf

NUCLEAR FAMILY

Name: NUCLEAR FAMILY
Author: Susanna Fogel
ISBN: 978-1-62779-793-1

A TRAGICOMIC NOVEL IN LETTERS

by Susanna Fogel ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 18, 2017

Bahahahaha.

bookshelf

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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

bookshelf

MAGIC HOUR

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006

Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.

bookshelf

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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

bookshelf

THE CATCHER IN THE RYE

by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951

A strict report, worthy of sympathy.

bookshelf

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.