Clichéd melodrama showing one man’s difficulties in ending a cycle of violence.
From Hunter (A One Woman Man, 2004), the story of a young African-American man newly released from prison who discovers that the women in his life have fallen on hard times in his absence.
Wrongfully convicted of a double murder in a convenience store, gifted athlete Nasir Lassiter is sentenced to life, effectively kissing goodbye his promising basketball career. Framed for the killings by his childhood pal Savion, and embittered by news that his girlfriend Ayana plans to abort their child, he refuses to see his friends and family while incarcerated. Flash forward five years: Nasir is suddenly released, his sentence overturned. He returns home to find not only that his once elegant mother Marcy has become a drug addict, but that Ayana kept their baby. Determined to give her daughter a better life, Ayana now lives in one of Atlanta’s toniest neighborhoods with the dangerously jealous but wealthy businessman Alonzo—pining all the while for Nasir. Nasir never stopped loving Ayana either, and sets out to makes things right for his family. But as happy as she is to have her son home, Marcy finds herself unable to shake her heroin habit. In search of a fix, she runs away from the fancy hotel Nasir puts her up in, forcing Nasir to give chase before she does something desperate. Ayana, for her part, realizes what a mistake she has made with the volatile Alonzo, but not before he hits her and issues some vague threats. Beleaguered Nasir also has to deal with Savion, and starts by beating him up in front of the entire community, leaving his old friend just able-bodied enough to cause more problems.
Clichéd melodrama showing one man’s difficulties in ending a cycle of violence.Pub Date: Oct. 24, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-48167-4
Page Count: 272
Publisher: One World/Random House
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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