Joe's second (Falling Leaves of Ivy, 1992) is a sassy, lively- -if thematically shopworn—exploration of dating and relationships in the '90s, told in the alternating voices of four African- Americans. Sandy is 25, well-educated, attractive, content with her job as a radio station executive, and looking for love. Her best friend Bebe's gone back to school and is juggling homework with her own job as a supervisor at a bank—and a desire to meet Mr. Right. When Sandy meets T.J., an aspiring jazz musician who's permanently short on cash, Bebe takes a while to warm up to him—but takes an immediate liking to his father, Speed, a widower who spends a lot of time with much younger women. There's no climax as such, but when Sandy decides to bring her best friend, lover, and lover's dad together at a dinner party at her apartment, all hell breaks loose: Bebe and Speed start flirting and end up in an impromptu dance contest, Bebe insults Speed, T.J. overhears and insults Bebe, and poor Sandy ends up angry with everyone. When she learns that T.J. has been philandering (with one of her officemates, no less), Sandy drops him—but then she's right back where she started: alone. A pregnancy scare, some poor communication—Bebe adopts an I-told- you-so attitude—and classic tales of misunderstanding ensue; when push comes to shove, however, everyone makes the right decisions and the characters who end up with love are the two who began by claiming they didn't want it. Too bad that Joe skates on the surface of the issues she ought to be exploring; the family and friendship bonds depicted here are more engaging than the love/sex stories, and the narrative offers few surprises. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Jan. 7, 1997
ISBN: 0-385-48507-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1996
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
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
BOOK REVIEW
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