In Smith’s sure hands, this funny tale of unlovable misfits is a gentle, romantic surprise.
Can a middle-age woman with a chronic fungal condition find love, or at least decent medical coverage? She might find both in this unlikely winner from the best-selling Haywood Smith.
Since the death of her devoted Tom a year ago, Cassie has been keeping up a brave front. But with years of undiagnosed health problems and a dwindling bank account, something has got to improve. She gives a new doctor a try and in the waiting room meets Jack, a sloppy curmudgeon who looks even worse than she does—he’s missing a leg and has blue lips, a clear sign of COPD. Jack is rude, but no matter, Cassie’s visit with this doctor is a revelation: Finally she has a diagnosis and a plan. She has a genetic deficiency leaving her with a severe allergy to fungus. A new diet and a glass house would be best, but the mold-remediation specialists guarantee her an improved environment when they’re done emptying out her bank account. At her next appointment, Jack is there again, with the same diagnosis and the same directive. Only, as he doesn’t have a hundred grand for a mold-free house, Cassie volunteers to help him clean. When she gets to his farmhouse outside of Atlanta, she thinks she’s stepped into an episode of Hoarders. No wonder Jack is dying. As payment for her help, he begins setting up her online dating accounts. She’s humiliated but reluctantly acknowledges she needs better medical insurance, so of course, a new husband. When dating doesn’t work out—one handsome archaeologist literally had skeletons in his closet—Jack and Cassie hatch a plan. He moves into her expensively sanitized home, and she gets to marry him for his excellent benefits. Whether this is a marriage made in hell or heaven depends on whether they can stick to the long list of rules and whether they can admit their growing fondness.
In Smith’s sure hands, this funny tale of unlovable misfits is a gentle, romantic surprise.Pub Date: Jan. 22, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-250-00352-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
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