‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 2, 2016
This effective odyssey through a burned, blighted future America fails to break new (parched) ground but should slake the...
As wildfires spawned by climate change cause America to collapse into savagery, a New Englander undertakes a perilous mission out West to find his daughter.
By 2025, the U.S. is literally falling apart: climate change and unchecked carbon dioxide emissions bring drought, food shortages, and runaway wildfires in the West. Scavengers and vicious gangs run rampant, and a desperate, brutal martial-law government (aka “the regime”) oppresses the weak and the refugees. Protagonist Mike Wade is a reluctant survivalist, a Vermont computer-app designer who perceived this coming and taught himself basic crossbow and shooting skills for the upcoming ordeal—fortunately, because his college-age daughter, Kara, becomes stranded somewhere near the Baja peninsula when everything falls apart. Wade journeys by train from the increasingly violent Chicago toward the scorching frontier in a twisting, turning quest through deserts and slot canyons for Kara. Backdraft fans expecting Armageddon-level firefighting will likely be disappointed that the flames stay on the distant horizon, as Wade and his changing band of short-term travel companions deal with the fallout of hunger, ash, disease, and continual threats of raids by neo-barbarians and fascistic authorities. Political types can parse whether the regime most resembles the administrations of Donald Trump, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, the leader in the Hunger Games series, or none of the above. Eco-cautionary themes of bitter despair occasionally acknowledge small acts of mercy and the continuation of the human spirit, come what may. There have been so many apocalyptic-dystopian survival adventures lately that someone should write a saga about America turning into a wasteland after being crushed under the weight of countless apocalyptic-dystopian novels. Meanwhile, Perry’s (Devastated Lands, 2017, etc.) tautly told tale turns out to be a vibrant addition to the genre, even if the premise—like a lot of the hardscrabble characters—looks rather ragged by now. The author originally published this epic as a two-part e-book before sewing the halves together, though the storyline still feels largely unresolved by the end. The tone deftly overlaps both the grown-up demographic and YA readership in which end-of-the-world narratives have spread like, well, wildfire.
This effective odyssey through a burned, blighted future America fails to break new (parched) ground but should slake the thirst of worst-case-scenario addicts.Pub Date: Oct. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5190-2049-9
Page Count: 291
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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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