by Whitney Dineen ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 4, 2014
An amusing, ultimately heartwarming romp through the ridiculousness of tabloid gossip and hometown comforts.
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This whirlwind comedy/drama, Dineen’s debut, centers on Lila Montgomery and her high school crush, a hilarious cat fight with a Hollywood starlet and her award-winning romance novel nobody knows about.
Thirty-two-year-old Lila is single and bored, working as a personal assistant to a sex-crazed, crooked Hollywood agent. Fed up with her job and unfulfilled in her lonely, childless life, she spends her free time writing explicit romance fantasy stories under the pseudonym Jasmine Sheath. When an invitation to her 15-year high school reunion comes in the mail, she decides to leave California for three weeks and spend some time figuring her life out in the comfort of her Illinois hometown. Drama ensues when famous actress Melinda Forrester—recently nominated for an Oscar for her depiction of a drug-addicted hooker and college student who becomes an Olympic track star—sues Lila for spreading rumors about her promiscuity. To complicate matters further, Jasmine Sheath’s publisher is requiring her to do a book signing in her hometown, revealing her true identity to the world. On top of that, Melinda’s lawyer in the lawsuit is none other than Lila’s high school crush. Dineen’s novel is packed with campy twists that thicken the plot while propelling it into absurdity. Dineen splices Lila’s story with the fantasy she wrote as Jasmine Sheath, which, despite its being a comical allegory for the “real world” drama, can get confusing. However, if understood as a satire of romance novels and Hollywood drama, the ridiculousness becomes fairly intriguing as this fun, quick read examines the envies and dissatisfactions in women’s lives, reassuring readers that no one’s life is truly perfect.
An amusing, ultimately heartwarming romp through the ridiculousness of tabloid gossip and hometown comforts.Pub Date: March 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-1496150455
Page Count: 292
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 6, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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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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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