In this case, enough said.
Some rootin’-tootin’ shoot-’em-up and slice-’em-up for those who thought the US-Japanese trade deficit was bad.
Missionaries arrive in Japan to spread Christ’s message. The time is just between the New Years—after the outsiders’ celebration and before the real New Year. A prophecy says that an outsider will save Lord Genji’s life after the New Year: but which New Year is meant? We seem to have Lord of the Rings (with the West as the economic orcs) mixed with Days of our Lives and The King and I, with a bow to Shogun to avoid accusations of plagiarism. Characters include the naive missionary Emily (“We bring nothing with us but the word of Christ. Why would anyone wish us harm?”), who may be doomed to fall for Lord Genji; the super-ninja-assassin Shigeru (“Slashing with the katana in his right hand and stabbing with the tanto in his left, Shigeru killed or mortally wounded everyone who opposed him”); the accidental gunslinger Stark, who repeatedly reminds us that a .44 bullet in the back of the neck can take a man’s head clean off; and Heiko, who is either the hottest geisha on this slope of Mt. Fuji or a spy—or both. The stakes are high: It will be war at the hands of outsiders or war among the samurai clans, and 2,000 years of civilization is on the line. Unfortunately, battle sequences are written more for ambitious cinematographers than for readers, and, really, Matsuoka doesn’t have the weapons to handle the morass he’s created: here, we’re treated to pedestrian wisdom (“It was truly a terrible thing to be in love”); nonwriting (“Above, the winter stars moved across the sky in their set orbits”); and inconsistencies—such as this one, regarding a land that’s supposed to have been secluded for several hundred years: “We have always been easy prey for foreign fads.”
In this case, enough said.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-385-33640-3
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
Fans weary of King's recent unwieldy tomes can rest easy: his newest is slim, slick, and razor-keen. His first novel without supernatural elements outside of the Richard Bachman series, this psychological terror tale laced with pitch-black humor tells the nerve-jangling story of a best-selling author kidnapped and tortured by his "number one fan." King opens on a disorienting note as writer Paul Sheldon drifts awake to find himself in bed, his legs shattered. A beefy woman, 40-ish Annie Wilkes, appears and feeds him barbiturates. During the hazy next week, Paul learns that Annie, an ex-nurse, carried him from a car wreck to her isolated house, where she plans to keep him indefinitely. She's a spiteful misanthrope subject to catatonic fits, but worships Paul because he writes her favorite books, historical novels featuring the heroine "Misery." As Annie pumps him with drugs and reads the script of his latest novel, also saved from the wreck, Paul waits with growing apprehension—he killed off Misery in this new one. tn time, Annie rushes into the room, howling: she demands that Paul write a new novel resurrecting Misery just for her. He refuses until she threatens to withhold his drugs; so he begins the book (tantalizing chunks of which King seeds throughout this novel). Days later, when Annie goes to town, Paul, who's now in a wheelchair, escapes his locked room and finds a scrapbook with clippings of Annie's hobby: she's a mass-murderer. Up to here, King has gleefully slathered on the tension: now he slams on the shocks as Annie returns swinging an axe and chops off Paul's foot. Soon after, off comes his thumb; when a cop looking for Paul shows up, Annie lawnmowers his head. Burning for revenge, Paul finishes his novel, only to use the manuscript as a weapon against his captor in the ironic, ferocious climax. Although lacking the psychological richness of his best work, this nasty shard of a novel with its weird autobiographical implications probably will thrill and chill King's legion of fans. Note: the publisher plans an unprecedented first printing of one-million copies.
Pub Date: June 8, 1987
ISBN: 0451169522
Page Count: 356
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1987
BOOK TO SCREEN
An ambitious look at how women’s roles have changed—and stayed the same—over the last 70 years.
A sprawling story about two sisters growing up, apart, and back together.
Jo and Bethie Kaufman may be sisters, but they don’t have much else in common. As young girls in the 1950s, Jo is a tomboy who’s uninterested in clothes while Bethie is the “pretty one” who loves to dress up. When their father dies unexpectedly, the Kaufman daughters and their mother, Sarah, suddenly have to learn how to take care of themselves at a time when women have few options. Jo, who realizes early on that she’s attracted to girls, knows that it will be difficult for her to ever truly be herself in a world that doesn’t understand her. Meanwhile, Bethie struggles with her appearance, using food to handle her difficult emotions. The names Jo and Beth aren’t all that Weiner (Hungry Heart, 2016, etc.) borrows from Little Women; she also uses a similar episodic structure to showcase important moments of the sisters’ lives as she follows them from girlhood to old age. They experience the civil rights movement, protests, sexual assault, drugs, sex, and marriage, all while dealing with their own personal demons. Although men are present in both women's lives, female relationships take center stage. Jo and Bethie are defined not by their relationships with husbands or boyfriends, but by their complex and challenging relationships with their mother, daughters, friends, lovers, and, ultimately, each other. Weiner resists giving either sister an easy, tidy ending; their sorrows are the kind that many women, especially those of their generation, have had to face. The story ends as Hillary Clinton runs for president, a poignant reminder of both the strides women have made since the 1950s and the barriers that still hold them back.
An ambitious look at how women’s roles have changed—and stayed the same—over the last 70 years.Pub Date: June 11, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-3348-0
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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