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SWEETGIRL

Name: SWEETGIRL
Author: Travis Mulhauser
ISBN: 978-0-06-240082-6

by Travis Mulhauser ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 2, 2016

Maybe enjoy a Coen brothers double feature—Raising Arizona and Fargo—instead.

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A first-time novelist borrows well-worn tropes.

Percy James is 16 years old and an orphan, basically. Her mother might not be dead, but she’s not exactly around, either. Percy is, in fact, searching a meth dealer’s house for the missing Carletta when she finds a baby named Jenna and, on impulse, snatches the infant from her crib. Will the neglected teen enlist the help of a responsible social worker in finding a more salubrious environment for both herself and Jenna? Oh, heavens no. She will, instead, take the cold, filth-covered foundling to the home of her mother’s ex, a gruff-but-kindly alcoholic. Will the baby’s mother and her meth-cooking boyfriend even notice the baby is gone, and will they care? Yes and yes! Drug-addled, gun-crazy rural high jinks ensue. One expects a narrative of this sort to unfold against an Appalachian setting—or within the swampy confines of the Florida panhandle, maybe. That Mulhauser has, instead, situated the fictional Cutler County at the northernmost point of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula is definitely the most original part of his novel. Percy, certainly, is an established type. She’s wise beyond her years, committed to doing the right thing despite—or is it because of?—the hardships she has endured. And, like every other character in this novel, she speaks with a folksy eloquence that requires strenuous suspension of disbelief. “While the particulars of a given calamity may be impossible to predict, while I could never say I expected to find a baby in the bedroom, chaos itself was always confirmation of the dread I carried certain in my bones.” Only a reader who is willing to believe that any teenager has ever expressed such a thought is capable of appreciating this book.

Maybe enjoy a Coen brothers double feature—Raising Arizona and Fargo—instead.

Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-06-240082-6

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2015

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2015

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.