by T.L. Hughes ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 22, 2018
A charming, soulful entry into a popular (and often disappointing) genre.
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It’s 1984, and Michael Hogan is embarking on the adventure of a lifetime, even if he doesn’t know it.
In Hughes’ (Searching for Paradise, 2015) novel, three friends spontaneously journey to London in search of video production jobs. After only one day of searching with no luck and getting chased out of a library, Mike, Declan, and Luke quickly drop that idea, choosing instead to “make a vacation” out of their troubled luck. The cast sustains this impulsive bent for the duration of the novel, much to the reader’s delight. Decky is the charmer of the group, with a winning, irresistible smile. Luke is a calmer, meditative sort. But Mike, who travels with much less money than his friends, has left America mainly to escape a messy breakup with his neglected girlfriend, Colette, and seems to worry constantly. His financial concerns and his emotional journey offer a welcome anchor to this whimsical coming-of-age–via-travel tale. The group spends a raucous night in London where they argue with a self-proclaimed communist and run from the law. They head to Amsterdam, where Mike butts heads with a snotty, rich college student named Blair, and they narrowly escape a life-threatening situation on their way to the red-light district. Decky leaves the group midway in search of his ancestral roots in Ireland, but Luke and Mike head to Oktoberfest for some sobering discussions of the Holocaust interspersed with scenes of congenial drunkenness. Hughes adds flavor with sketches of other travelers met along the way. Particularly striking is a white South African surfer who dismisses apartheid but reacts with deep feeling to a tour of the Dachau concentration camp. Mike finds himself alone, bouncing between familiar faces and new friends as he explores Greece and Turkey, suffering a particularly brutal ride through the Eastern bloc to arrive in Athens. Throughout it all, Hughes maintains a tension that transforms this meandering tale into one of complex depictions of human compassion.
A charming, soulful entry into a popular (and often disappointing) genre.Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-9772-0174-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Outskirts Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by T.L. Hughes
by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
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
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by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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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