An emotionally wrenching story of teenage survival, despite its flaws.
A young man weathers grisly traumas and tries to climb out of depression while attending an elite boarding school in this novel.
Chris Brooks grew up in a building on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, but his parents squandered their wealth, so in 1971, they moved permanently into their weekend home in Derring Harbor, New York, on Long Island. The 13-year-old is eager to attend the exclusive St. James’ School, a boarding school that three generations of his family have attended. But before he officially moves there, a former classmate from his old school gets him drunk, sexually assaults him, and swears him to secrecy. Chris is tortured by the incident, feeling like he was somehow to blame for it. Shortly thereafter, another sociopathic teenager ferociously rapes Chris in a boathouse and then chillingly shows up at Chris’ home later, with parents in tow, demanding an apology for fictitious insults. Chris’ parents don’t defend him at the time, although sometime later, his father believes his story about the rape—but he declines to press charges in order to avoid a messy, neighborhood imbroglio. At St. James’, Chris abuses drugs and fends off the advances of a pederast housemaster. Author Rue (Last Tango in Jacksonville, 2010) courageously plumbs the depths of the topic of sexual abuse with an unblinking realism. However, the narrative simply piles too many troubles on its protagonist’s young shoulders; for example, early on, it’s revealed that his Uncle Ned is a monster who treats him with seething contempt. However, the young man’s suffering is so profound later on that there doesn’t seem to be a narrative reason to include that source of despair. Also, it seems that everyone at the school knows that the housemaster is a pedophile—one student describes him as “unrepentant and full-blown,” and even Chris’ brother, Jack, warns Chris to stay away from him—and it’s never really made clear what accounts for the housemaster’s apparent impunity. Still, these plot defects aside, this is an affecting, if dispiriting, story to read.
An emotionally wrenching story of teenage survival, despite its flaws.Pub Date: Jan. 15, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5411-1398-5
Page Count: 804
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 1, 2017
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
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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