by William Kinsolving ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 1993
Ever the slapdash master of the wildly improbable, Kinsolving here abandons the rags-to-riches rut of Bred to Win (1990) to focus on those born to rule and on the trendy tumult of Middle East terrorism and diplomatic brinkmanship. Superwoman Lily McCann maintains an unflagging can-do attitude, whether working her way through Yale as an undergraduate or hanging tough against an obsessed Arab meanie who hates her just for being American and beautiful. Calling Cairo home with her roving diplomat father after they are abandoned by her flighty French mother, Lily experiences the troubles of the region firsthand, witnessing a group of Palestinian children in her care butchered on the eve of the 1967 War. Years later, when a terrorist car bomb in Beirut does in her father, she decides to take up his cause of the devoted yet principled public servant, thereby complicating her stormy marriage to the brilliant, self-serving Worth Deloit, who wants only to enter the top echelon of the State Department and doesn't care how he does it. Posted by the Foreign Service to the Middle East, Lily allows herself to be wooed by a diamond merchant in Israel only to learn that he's a Mossad agent, then is abducted in Jordan by her Arab nemesis, who shuts her in a closet with the agent to die; ever resourceful, she escapes unharmed when he picks the lock with her IUD. In a last-minute maneuver, Lily prevents the terrorists from sterilizing all of Israel, but Worth is killed protecting her—thereby living up to his name in the end. As always, far-fetched and outrageously contrived, but with enough realistic detail to make the tale palatable: admirers won't be disappointed.
Pub Date: June 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-385-41931-7
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1993
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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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BOOK REVIEW
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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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