Hyperbole and emotional wrong notes further detract from the execution of a strong premise: a shaky debut.
An aspiring painter loses her mother and, while seeking out the father she has never known, falls in love and finds her feet as an artist.
Patrizia Orman, 22, works at a SoHo art gallery, paints when she can, and maintains an active but unpromising dating life. She has just rejected Eric, a reliable but boring-in-bed schoolteacher who made the mistake of telling her she's got some “issues” to resolve. And indeed she does. She's suspicious of men and has never felt at home anywhere, despite having a loving mother who gave her a stable, if cash-strapped upbringing. After Mom dies unexpectedly, Patrizia's godmother fills her in on her parents' affair and surprises her with a bagful of letters and uncashed checks from her father, now a wealthy art dealer in Rome. Patrizia then flies to Italy and insinuates herself incognito into his life with the goal—an odd one, given the letters showing he cared—of hurting him, ostensibly to avenge her mother. This plan falls by the wayside as Dad champions her painting (under his tutelage, she does her best work) and treats her kindly. Meanwhile, Andrea, a handsome Italian, woos Patrizia, with much success, until she catches her father in an act of such selfishness that she is once again gripped by distrust. Love and fear duke it out, wrapping up a story not helped by distracting inconsistencies: Did she never miss her father growing up, or did she think about him all the time? When she sees the letters from her father, does she know right away who wrote them, or does it take her a while? If she has ruled out Anna as an alias, why does she then choose it?
Hyperbole and emotional wrong notes further detract from the execution of a strong premise: a shaky debut.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-688-17888-X
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2000
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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
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