Despite a few weak spots, an enticing first book that reveals plenty of potential.
A young, successful lawyer living in New York City discovers that his closest friend harbored secrets built on shame and love.
Peter and Simon became friends in grade school when they discovered themselves to be not just the only Asian students but also part of a very small crowd of non-Jewish children. Over the years they shared triumphs and setbacks, providing emotional and financial support to each other as needed. Peter never expected to be acting as executor of his friend’s estate, but when Simon dies from self-inflicted stab wounds, Peter is left to work out the details of the will and recover from the shock and grief as best he can. Part of the shock comes from meeting Simon’s girlfriend Catherine and their daughter Joanna for the first time at the funeral. A successful businessman, Simon left behind a journal detailing the pivotal moments of his life (graduation, falling in love, depression) and through reading it, Peter gains further understanding of his friend, much of which Peter was protected from. He also gains a clearer view of the malicious intrigues surrounding the Chaebol, an elite group of powerful South Korean immigrants who may have played a hand in Simon’s death. Kim nicely handles intricate, recurring themes and images, such as that of the pigeon Simon saved from his mother’s balcony. The author is also talented at portraying a rough side of the city—room salons where men can purchase the attentions of beautiful women—with respect and compassion. Kim’s characters are precisely written yet maintain enough of a spark of vitality to keep readers caring and concerned. The story occasionally slows to a sluggish pace, specifically during the 40-plus pages of journal extraction, and a few of the plot twists seem based more on narrative convenience than natural development. Flashbacks and tangents sometimes overpower the quieter thrust of the contemporary mystery.
Despite a few weak spots, an enticing first book that reveals plenty of potential.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0984435937
Page Count: 394
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Nov. 16, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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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