An absorbing story about how it sometimes takes silence to make a person hear.
Facing an imminent operation that will leave her permanently deaf, a teenage girl tries to make certain that her life is in order before the world of sound vanishes forever in this debut novel by college student Abelson.
Seventeen-year-old Charlotte Goode suffers from a rare genetic disorder called Type II Neurofibromatosis that causes tumors to constantly pop up along her nervous system. Now she has found out that tumors are growing on her auditory nerves and that the operation to remove them will leave her permanently deaf—a frightening prospect made even worse by her love of music. As the operation approaches, her boss at the music magazine gives her an assignment to pick a local band for a benefit. Both of the boys who lead the respective bands in contention attract her, and she doesn’t know which to choose. As she wrestles with the decision, her family life is in upheaval. Will she be able to resolve everything before her operation? This is an impressive first novel by the author, who based it on the accounts of a woman who suffered from Type II Neurofibromatosis. Although most characters are well-drawn and complete, the best is Charlotte. She faces life and the news of her impending deafness with a mixture of wry observations and down-to-earth practicality, with nary a trace of self-pity. The author wisely refrains from filling pages with rhapsodic descriptions of the sound of birds, the roar of the ocean, the whispering of the wind, etc., which would have quickly grown tiresome and maudlin. The plot of the book is trite, basically boiling down to: Who is Mr. Right? What saves it from being an After School Special is how Charlotte handles her impending deafness with maturity. An unsatisfying note is struck by Charlotte’s brother-in-law, who seems to not like Charlotte because of her illness. One wishes that he would suffer just a little comeuppance for his mean-spiritedness. Otherwise, the novel moves smartly to its conclusion, with plenty of poignant moments along the way.
An absorbing story about how it sometimes takes silence to make a person hear.Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2013
ISBN: 978-1475273090
Page Count: 272
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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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