An enjoyable and well-written supernatural tale, despite loose ends and a few missteps.
When a sixth-grade Florida girl is transformed into a 20-something woman, she and her friends search for a cure in this debut YA paranormal novel.
On the eve of her 12th birthday, blond-haired Tabitha “Tabby” Easterland tells her best friends, Kat Dorsett and Dolly Hargrave, that she has one wish: to go with Finn McKinna to the junior high dance next year. But when Tabby wakes up the next morning, she discovers that she seems to have aged more than 10 years. Luckily, she’s not at home with her Aunt Patti, but at Kat’s house for a sleepover. (Tabby’s mother is dead; her father is institutionalized.) Tabby can’t go home, for the somewhat flimsy reason that she might be jailed “for the kidnapping of...herself.” The girls manage to establish a new identity for Tabby (Elise Mulligan), who gets a teaching job at her own school while they look for a remedy. Her mother’s diary, strange dreams of two evil sisters, and odd experiences confuse Tabby until Mrs. Bumble, a fellow teacher whose spare room the young woman moves into, gives her the bad news: She’s under a curse. A school field trip leads to a dangerous, dramatic confrontation with the Black and White sisters, named for their hair color. Though Tabby learns more about her family, the curse, and other matters, much work remains; the tale will continue in a sequel. In her novel, Elaine mixes up an entertaining blend of middle school best friend shenanigans with the supernatural—witchcraft, curses, a mystical society founded by an ancient civilization—and a family mystery. These last two elements are complex and well thought out, offering several surprises along the way. Although the book feels slow at 300-plus pages, frustratingly so since the story isn’t finished, it could grapple more with the implications of Tabby’s adult body. She’s embarrassed by her new figure but any interest or exploration stops there. And while it’s understandable that young people don’t want to look ancient, must “old and ruined” go together? Nevertheless, readers will likely be eager for the sequel.
An enjoyable and well-written supernatural tale, despite loose ends and a few missteps.Pub Date: Feb. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9981659-6-7
Page Count: 326
Publisher: Ingramelliott
Review Posted Online: Aug. 3, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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