Marley and Me combined with Tuesdays with Morrie.
From humor columnist Cameron (8 Simple Rules for Dating my Teenage Daughter, 2008, etc.), a first novel that follows the spiritual journey of a dog through four incarnations.
“Toby” is first born in a litter of four to a mother who lives in the wild away from humans. But soon the family is captured. Although his mother wants only to escape, Toby—who understands human language as soon as he hears it—is immediately drawn to the human kindness of the woman who has made it her mission to care for strays. Unfortunately her facility is already overcrowded when a vicious new dog arrives. Injured in a fight among the dogs, Toby ends up in a pound where he is put down, but not before he’s begun to wonder what his purpose in life might be. He is reborn as “Bailey,” a golden retriever who becomes the beloved pet of “the boy” named Ethan. Ethan lives with his parents in town but spends summers on his grandparents’ farm, where both Ethan and Bailey form a special bond with a little girl named Hannah. When Ethan is a teenager, a jealous, frankly evil schoolmate burns down Ethan’s house. Bailey helps the police catch the perpetrator, but Ethan is badly injured, physically and emotionally. He and Bailey spend his senior year recuperating at his grandparents’ farm as his parents’ marriage disintegrates. By now Bailey has realized that his purpose is to comfort Ethan. Ethan goes off to college and eventually Bailey dies of old age to be reborn as Ellie, a female dog who becomes the star of a K-9 unit until she loses her sense of smell. Although her owners love her, she never forgets her special bond with Ethan. So when Toby/Bailey/Ellie is reborn, male again, he searches until he finds Ethan, now a lonely old man living on the family farm. Soon Ethan adopts “Buddy,” who reunites Ethan with his lost love Hannah.
Marley and Me combined with Tuesdays with Morrie.Pub Date: July 6, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-7653-2626-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2010
A tour de force.
In 1974, a troubled Vietnam vet inherits a house from a fallen comrade and moves his family to Alaska.
After years as a prisoner of war, Ernt Allbright returned home to his wife, Cora, and daughter, Leni, a violent, difficult, restless man. The family moved so frequently that 13-year-old Leni went to five schools in four years. But when they move to Alaska, still very wild and sparsely populated, Ernt finds a landscape as raw as he is. As Leni soon realizes, “Everyone up here had two stories: the life before and the life now. If you wanted to pray to a weirdo god or live in a school bus or marry a goose, no one in Alaska was going to say crap to you.” There are many great things about this book—one of them is its constant stream of memorably formulated insights about Alaska. Another key example is delivered by Large Marge, a former prosecutor in Washington, D.C., who now runs the general store for the community of around 30 brave souls who live in Kaneq year-round. As she cautions the Allbrights, “Alaska herself can be Sleeping Beauty one minute and a bitch with a sawed-off shotgun the next. There’s a saying: Up here you can make one mistake. The second one will kill you.” Hannah’s (The Nightingale, 2015, etc.) follow-up to her series of blockbuster bestsellers will thrill her fans with its combination of Greek tragedy, Romeo and Juliet–like coming-of-age story, and domestic potboiler. She re-creates in magical detail the lives of Alaska's homesteaders in both of the state's seasons (they really only have two) and is just as specific and authentic in her depiction of the spiritual wounds of post-Vietnam America.
A tour de force.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-312-57723-0
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2017
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.
Eleven years ago, he broke her heart. But he doesn’t know why she never forgave him.
Toggling between past and present, two love stories unfold simultaneously. In the first, Macy Sorensen meets and falls in love with the boy next door, Elliot Petropoulos, in the closet of her dad’s vacation home, where they hide out to discuss their favorite books. In the second, Macy is working as a doctor and engaged to a single father, and she hasn’t spoken to Elliot since their breakup. But a chance encounter forces her to confront the truth: what happened to make Macy stop speaking to Elliot? Ultimately, they’re separated not by time or physical remoteness but by emotional distance—Elliot and Macy always kept their relationship casual because they went to different schools. And as a teen, Macy has more to worry about than which girl Elliot is taking to the prom. After losing her mother at a young age, Macy is navigating her teenage years without a female role model, relying on the time-stamped notes her mother left in her father’s care for guidance. In the present day, Macy’s father is dead as well. She throws herself into her work and rarely comes up for air, not even to plan her upcoming wedding. Since Macy is still living with her fiance while grappling with her feelings for Elliot, the flashbacks offer steamy moments, tender revelations, and sweetly awkward confessions while Macy makes peace with her past and decides her future.
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2801-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
