A spoiled rich girl’s wakeup call has an added twist in Schmidt’s first novel—the tale is designed to give women step-by-step instructions for establishing themselves in the world.
At only 23-years-old, Morgan Demarest is kicked out of her boyfriend’s apartment with nowhere to go. Following the author’s introduction, Morgan quickly asserts herself as a shopaholic with a penchant for designer stilettos. It’s then that Demarest meets Divinity, her sassy fairy godmother who won’t tolerate Morgan’s whiny attitude. Divinity guides Morgan to a more purposeful life, and the story serves as an example for how women can give their lives a makeover. The book intertwines Morgan’s journey to find her life’s passion (an event planner, as it turns out) and helping women find their own life’s passion. Unlike most mundane self-help books, the story shows women how to reach their dreams without actually telling them. The “footnotes” at the end of each chapter further emphasize this point without preaching. Each footnote summarizes the lesson Morgan learned, including goal setting, finding a mentor, journaling, handling conflicts and making positive financial decisions. Although the story illustrates a person’s potential well, some aspects of the book are overdone. The characters don’t feel like average women; almost everyone starts a successful company, including Morgan, who at the end is on her way to being a very successful event planner. Morgan discovers her passion through her job at an art gallery, and, with advice from her no-nonsense fairy godmother, she figures out how to run her life without having money handed to her. Morgan’s journey is compelling, but the women’s desperate need for stilettos is exhausting. Despite these setbacks, the light-hearted story inconspicuously motivates women to do something with their lives. A subtle blend of counseling, motivation and entertainment that will make any woman buy the hottest stilettos she can find and reach for her dreams.
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0615494784
Page Count: 270
Publisher: Glamour Press House
Review Posted Online: Jan. 23, 2012
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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