Savko’s debut is an engaging read with an honest approach to difficult subject matter.
Two young parents struggle while raising an autistic child in this frank and candid look at the disorder.
Andrew suffers through severe anxiety brought on by the loneliness of being a stay-at-home dad; he cares for daughter Eileen and troubled son Nathan while wife Erica works nights and pursues her bachelor’s degree. The last straw comes when Nathan is diagnosed with autism and the shock of learning that their normal life is anything but what it appears quickly tears the young couple apart. Andrew and Erica are not always the most sympathetic protagonists, a fact that only makes them more believable and fully realized as characters. Both have deep, fleshed-out back stories that are introduced organically throughout the plot, giving the reader a welcome insight into the decisions they make and the sometimes harsh manner in which they treat each other. Though our time spent with them as a cohesive, happily married couple is short and already mired in hardship, it is genuinely heartbreaking to watch their marriage fall apart. Their reaction to their son’s diagnosis and the way in which they cope with his disorder feels realistic. Nathan isn’t presented as the traditional stereotype of a child with autism; Savko’s portrayal of him is sweetly nuanced, in a way that those who have experienced the trials of the disorder firsthand will appreciate. And the book’s ironic contrast of two people who are terrible at communicating trying to socialize an autistic child makes for a compelling, emotional tale. Dialogue between characters is at times rigid and perfunctory, surprising in what is an otherwise highly readable novel. The included “Reader’s Guide” feels unnecessary—the questions raised are unnecessary as the themes they draw attention to are well-represented within the text.
Savko’s debut is an engaging read with an honest approach to difficult subject matter.Pub Date: March 30, 2010
ISBN: 978-0981786803
Page Count: 304
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: July 20, 2011
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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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