While the storytelling can be confusing at times, this adventure offers a realistic, brutal look at the tumultuous war in...
A novel about the darkness of war as seen through a soldier’s eyes as he battles not only his daily routines but for his own sense of humanity.
In Iraq, soldier Thomas Edington feels he can’t get clean. It’s more than just the greasy water, which seems to leave a film between his skin and clothing. It goes beyond the blistering heat and the ubiquitous dust that coats his body from the moment he towels off. There’s also the realization that he is not safe and that his life can, and probably will, end without any warning. Things a normal man takes for granted—a warm meal, a comfortable bed, a loving wife—fade away as Edington does his daily rounds in this war-torn land. He’s in the middle of a war where suicide bombings are frequent; the young boy that begs you for change could end up killing you; and sleep, or even a few hours off for rest and relaxation, is difficult. Most of the story feels like a dream, told with flashbacks and short bursts of action, and readers will sympathize with Edington’s precarious situation. The narrative never feels stable; it veers in multiple directions as people are introduced and then disappear without much explanation. While this makes the story somewhat challenging to follow, readers can only imagine that soldiers in today’s modern wars must feel somewhat similar—confused and scatterbrained. Yet Edington remains a constant, and his voice holds the chapters together despite their dissonance. He, too, is struck by how strange his situation is, and he wonders whether his emotional reactions are appropriate, as when Edington sees a market bombed, resulting in horrifying deaths: “Thoughts of how many innocent people had just been killed hung heavy on his mind. When his team drove through the market moments ago, hundreds of people stood crowding together in the square. However, part of him was slapping high-fives to himself for just surviving the attack.”
While the storytelling can be confusing at times, this adventure offers a realistic, brutal look at the tumultuous war in Iraq.Pub Date: April 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-1481736374
Page Count: 246
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Nov. 12, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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