A bit too tidily resolved to be wholly convincing, but a pleasant read nonetheless.
An agreeable, if somewhat routine, novel of a young woman attempting to bring order and meaning to her life, from the author of The Book of Dead Birds (2003).
Flan (short for Flannery) has an unusual occupation—she attends auctions at self-storage units, buying the contents of the unpaid lock-ups. She bids only on the small stuff, units filled with boxes of knick-knacks and old clothes, ten-dollar investments she sells at her Saturday yard sales. It’s not much, but it supplements the lean lifestyle of her family of four—husband Shae, a doctoral student, who bores Flan with his endless quoting of Baudrillard, and their two young children, Noodle and Nori. Living in student housing, Flan enjoys the excitement of an international life by proxy—her friends and neighbors are research fellows and doctoral candidates from all over the world, which includes the Afghan couple across the way, a man and his mysterious burqa-wearing wife Sodaba. Set in the months after 9/11, their presence is a constant source of curiosity, and for some, anger borne of racism. Flan watches Sodaba at the community pool swimming in her burqa, sees her skittering into her house to avoid the neighbors, and wonders why she wants to wear that big black thing in America. Though Flan is characterized by the author as bright (she was set to go to Reed College before she met Shae), part of the novel’s misstep is that she seems a bit of a dim bulb. She spends much of her time searching frantically for her kids, until tragedy finally hits—while Flan and Shae are indisposed, two-year-old Nori leaves the house and is hit by none other than Sodaba, driving without a license. As Nori lies in a hospital bed, Flan decides to save Sodaba from deportation (and maybe death) while fending off Child Protective Services for being an unfit parent. All the while, Flan draws strength from reading her mother’s old copy of Leaves of Grass, which saves her in more ways than one.
A bit too tidily resolved to be wholly convincing, but a pleasant read nonetheless.Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2007
ISBN: 0-345-49260-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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