For the setting and era alone, this ripping adventure yarn offers sufficient rewards.
Set in 19th-century Hawaii, a historical novel stars a handsome young hero.
The story begins in 1867, when 17-year-old John Tana, an orphan, is thrown off his land by the evil sugar baron Robert Grant. John finds himself on the run, not only from Grant’s henchmen, but also from the vengeful Capt. Julius Shaw and the murderous crew of the whaler Jeremiah. But friends and relatives abound, including his beautiful cousin Leinani (who in fact is not his cousin; it’s complicated). He escapes to Maui with Shaw in hot but futile pursuit. When things get too dangerous, John and company eventually flee to Honolulu (Oahu). Along the way, readers meet John’s Aunt Malia, his cousin David, Ah Sam (John’s close Chinese friend), and many, many others. This is all against a social backdrop that has the Caucasians (Americans) at the top of the heap, then the native Hawaiians, then the Chinese. (The Hawaiians themselves are divided between those of supposed royal blood and commoners like John.) The story chronicles a hatefully racist time and place, in which the Chinese, especially, live in fear of the next mob to bubble up. And don’t forget missionary Christianity versus the native religion. John is adept at the ancient Hawaiian martial art of lua, which stands him in good stead as combat has become a crucial part of his daily survival. Fernandez (Cult of Ku, a Hawaiian Murder Mystery, 2016, etc.), a native Hawaiian, is an authentic voice for John and the Pacific archipelago’s turbulent history. Plot twists come thick and fast, and there is always the seductive undercurrent of John’s love for Leinani, a romance that at times seems doomed. The author expertly moves the plot along (through short chapters), and the vivid and intriguing details of Hawaiian daily life in the 19th century ring true. At times, John’s virtue and especially his fighting prowess test the reader’s credulity, but the striking ending is not tidy, a plus.
For the setting and era alone, this ripping adventure yarn offers sufficient rewards.Pub Date: Jan. 6, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5393-1500-1
Page Count: 290
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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