A stagnant shopping mall in South Florida is a crowded center stage for this large-canvas story from Bloor (Tangerine, 1997), who weaves labyrinthine plot strands, from politics and the power of the media to alienation and personal redemption, while an exploration of racism hovers in the background. Smart, Seuss-spouting Roberta, 15, is capable and knowing beyond her years, raising herself on boxes of macaroni, neglected by a father whose presence is primarily the stack of rented videos he leaves for her on the counter. Her only family is the drunken uncle (in fact, most of the adults are bad guys, drunks, liars—even murderers) she works for at the failing virtual reality video arcade, and his troubled children. As the story unfolds, remarkably resilient Roberta comes closer to solving the riddle of her mother’s murder seven years ago; the solution hits close to home, and is only one among plot strands vying for attention as Roberta schools herself to become a reporter, conducts her own surveillance of local hate crimes, faces the death of a friend and an elderly guardian, saves the mall from bankruptcy, and inherits a Hallmark store. Roberta’s transformation from androgenous geek to self-sufficient, truth-seeking heroine is believable throughout, and, despite an overdose of detail, readers will be patient with a cast of characters for whom a bout of chicken pox is revelatory and a near-death in a freezer is life-affirming. Roberta emerges from her war a contemporary crusader, strong and whole and sure. (Fiction. 13-15)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-15-201944-8
Page Count: 390
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1999
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes...
In a riveting novel from Myers (At Her Majesty’s Request, 1999, etc.), a teenager who dreams of being a filmmaker writes the story of his trial for felony murder in the form of a movie script, with journal entries after each day’s action.
Steve is accused of being an accomplice in the robbery and murder of a drug store owner. As he goes through his trial, returning each night to a prison where most nights he can hear other inmates being beaten and raped, he reviews the events leading to this point in his life. Although Steve is eventually acquitted, Myers leaves it up to readers to decide for themselves on his protagonist’s guilt or innocence.
The format of this taut and moving drama forcefully regulates the pacing; breathless, edge-of-the-seat courtroom scenes written entirely in dialogue alternate with thoughtful, introspective journal entries that offer a sense of Steve’s terror and confusion, and that deftly demonstrate Myers’s point: the road from innocence to trouble is comprised of small, almost invisible steps, each involving an experience in which a “positive moral decision” was not made. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: May 31, 1999
ISBN: 0-06-028077-8
Page Count: 280
Publisher: HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1999
Billed as the conclusion to the saga that began with The Face on the Milk Carton (1990), this soapy drama ends with some wounds healed, but the characters and plot lines suspended in thin Rocky Mountain air. Raised by a Connecticut couple who believed themselves to be her grandparents, but were actually the mother and father of Hannah, her kidnapper, Janie has rejoined and subsequently relinquished her birth family to live with those who raised her. Now, as her “father” lies in intensive care, Janie discovers that he not only knows where Hannah is, but has been sending her money regularly from a special account. Hannah lives in Boulder, Colorado, where Janie’s older brother, Stephen, is going to school and falling hard for domineering Kathleen; Janie flies out for a visit, determined to confront Hannah, and get answers about her past. The characters have sharp intelligence and strong, complex feelings, but, despite staccato prose and frequent shifts in point-of-view, the plot lags, stretched out to give everyone a chance to wrestle with private demons. In what passes for a climax Stephen and Kathleen move apart, Janie and formerly disgraced boyfriend Reeve narrow the rift between them, and Janie decides to “unkidnap” herself by mailing Hannah the balance of the special account, without making direct contact. Readers may appreciate her wisdom, but as Hannah remains a faceless, voiceless enigma, there is no closure to the central mystery of the four- book drama. (Fiction. 11-13)
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2000
ISBN: 0-385-32611-4
Page Count: 189
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1999
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