by Victoria Hislop ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 6, 2009
A complex, beautiful tale of loss, loyalty and the past recaptured.
Can a London girl in a miserable marriage find happiness taking dancing lessons in southern Spain?
Partly to escape the dourness of urban life and partly at the insistence of her old friend Maggie, Sonia embarks on a semi-spontaneous trip to Granada to literally kick up her heels. Getting away from her stuffy, usually drunk husband James is an added inducement. Sonia’s sweet father Jack married a Spanish woman in the 1950s, so Iberian fire is to some extent already in her blood. During her brief initial visit to Granada, Sonia finds a spiritual home. While exploring the city, she comes across El Barril, a cozy café run by Miguel, a survivor of the Spanish Civil War, and is intrigued by some posters and photographs of Mercedes, a flamenco dancer, and Ignacio, a young bullfighter. Sonia’s jaunt to Granada frames the main narrative: Miguel’s long reminiscence of life in Spain shortly before and during the Civil War. It turns out that Mercedes and Ignacio were children of the café’s former owners, Concha and Pablo Ramírez, whose family was torn apart by conflicting loyalties during the war. Hislop (The Island, 2007) uses the Ramírezes to symbolize and personalize the conflict. Miguel takes us back into the past. Along the way he traces the fates of the Pablo, Concha and their four children. Pablo sacrificed himself rather than let his wife go to prison for listening to subversive radio broadcasts; one of their sons was jailed for his sexual orientation as well as his left-leaning politics; Mercedes traveled across the country in search of the love of her life, a flamenco guitarist whose gypsy blood made him of interest to the fascists. Meanwhile, Sonia discovers some secrets that link her family to the Ramirezes.
A complex, beautiful tale of loss, loyalty and the past recaptured.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-06-171541-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2009
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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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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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