Bittersweet coming-of-age tale with flashes of wit and an especially sympathetic heroine.
A young woman gets the chance to confront the now world-famous rock star who broke her heart 13 years ago, and who went on to write a series of deeply personal songs about her.
Back in Croton Falls, Vt., Jake Sharpe was a teen dream: beautiful, talented, with an aching vulnerability and an unhappy home life. After adoring him for much of high school, Kate Hollis finally gets her man, and the two are inseparable until Jake takes off for L.A. shortly before graduation—without saying goodbye. A devastated Kate tries to get over her loss, but finds it exceedingly difficult as Jake’s music career takes off, with his songs about their young love becoming modern classics. So when her childhood best friend Laura calls to alert her that Jake has come home to do a TV special, Kate puts her grown-up life in Charleston on hold and heads to Croton Falls, in an effort to make Jake “regret his entire existence.” At her parent’s house, Kate revisits all the memories, good and bad, that led her to this moment, including her dad’s mental breakdown and her mom’s subsequent affair, which brought Kate and Jake even closer. And, yep, he wrote about that, too. She then schemes her way onto Jake’s shoot, and catches his eye, setting the stage for the apology—and sexy reunion—that Kate has long been waiting for. Turns out that Jake has never gotten over her either, and the rekindling of their romance feels like fate, with Jake trying to make up for lost time. He whisks his muse to his New York penthouse, and the two share some blissful moments until the mayhem of his celebrity existence intrudes, causing Kate to question whether Jake has changed too much—or too little. This third effort from McLaughlin and Kraus (Citizen Girl, 2004, etc.) is spot-on in its depiction of Kate and Laura’s early girlish hysteria, and quickly overcomes a certain cleverness for its own sake to tell a moving story of teenage passion.
Bittersweet coming-of-age tale with flashes of wit and an especially sympathetic heroine.Pub Date: June 5, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-4165-4013-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2007
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
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
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