An intense bag of horror goodies, fortified by strong female protagonists.
A family encounters strange people and even stranger creatures during a nightmarish summer vacation in this debut novel.
The Nunios family getaway may not be relaxing for 16-year-old Alison. It means close quarters with her shiftless older brother and fresh high school graduate, Michael, and her constantly feuding parents. Luckily, best friend Olivia’s along for the trip, though her company’s a persistent reminder that, with Olivia’s family moving, the two will be separated for the upcoming school year. Cape November is nostalgic for Alison’s parents, who recall visiting the place in their youth and hearing the local legend of Cappy the sea monster. But bizarre occurrences start before they’ve reached Cape November; the minivan apparently hits something, and stopping to check an object lying in the road leads to an attack from a giant bird and biting insects. Their hotel in the Cape, meanwhile, is the spooky Maggie’s Mansion, where they’re awakened by a scream in the dark. None of this, however, prepares them for a town of hooded figures and creepy kids with sharp sticks. There are stories of missing residents, which may soon include Alison’s mysteriously absent parents or the teen herself. Favetta saves most of the horrors for later, wisely spending the first half of the eerie tale developing characters. Alison, for one, who’s smart but sometimes condescending (derisively dubbing Michael a “genius”), is fittingly counterbalanced by astute and empathetic Olivia. Romance, too, is understated: Olivia’s openly gay, while Alison’s clearly attracted to her but seems conflicted. The author drops hints of what’s coming: pictures of a tentacled beast and Olivia seeing hooded men menacingly approach the minivan. The potent final act is best left unspoiled, but entails otherworldly creatures, visceral death, and shades of H.P. Lovecraft. Formidable Alison and Olivia bolster a feminist theme, prevalent in keen, self-deprecating dialogue: when Alison fears that fleeing makes them look like scared girls, Olivia remarks, “We are a couple of scared girls.”
An intense bag of horror goodies, fortified by strong female protagonists.Pub Date: Feb. 24, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9972024-3-4
Page Count: 340
Publisher: Can't Put It Down Books
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2017
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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