Heartwarming tale of a woman’s physical transformation and spiritual journey.
An accident victim visits heaven in her dreams.
In winter darkness, Angie Gabriel drives an Alaskan road with 7-year-old daughter Lucy in the passenger seat. After hitting a guardrail, Angie loses consciousness and dreams of heaven. Upon waking in the hospital, she finds her mother and ex-husband Mark by her side, but no Lucy. Before the accident, Mark and well-to-do wife Alice wanted custody of Lucy, being better able to care for her than financially strapped Angie who refused to give up her daughter. After her release, wheelchair-bound Angie goes home to live with her distant workaholic father and her mother, who sided with Mark and Alice for Lucy’s custody. During her recovery, Angie continues to dream of heaven. She moves into an apartment, undergoes physical therapy, uncovers details of her accident and a possible catalyst for racing through the night at breakneck speed. Through it all, she grows ever closer to Mark, who may be heading for divorce. And then comes a surprising revelation that changes Angie’s perspective. Although at times pacing lags, this is a charming story of a spunky woman doing her best to deal with a spate of life-altering events and ever-changing family dynamics. Between ex-spouses, old feelings often die hard, and the author does a fine job of portraying the off-and-on-again relationship of Angie and Mark. One of the book’s strengths lies in its contrast of an independent, mobile existence with a world of disability and dependence on others and how this translates into daily living, including interaction with strangers. Heaven as described herein is sparkling but never saccharine. As a character, Angie’s transformation is far from one-note and extends into various aspects of life, including self-responsibility for the effect her semihelpless state has on others. The novel’s end, although subject to interpretation, is nonetheless satisfying.
Heartwarming tale of a woman’s physical transformation and spiritual journey.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2011
ISBN: 978-1461146513
Page Count: 292
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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