An often pleasant slice of a dog’s life.
In Hanser’s (The ESL Student’s Grammar HELP! Student Handbook, 2014, etc.) novel, a charismatic canine recovers from an accident and steals his human family’s heart.
This sweet dog tale, narrated by Joey the chocolate Labrador retriever, is based on true events, according to the author. As a young pup, Joey is adopted by a new family—Mom, Dad, and little girl Vivi—and lives a rambunctious, happy life of rascally hole-digging and crazy escapes from the fenced backyard. The author scatters lovely color photographs throughout of the real-life Joey, his family, and even a friendly animal control employee’s truck. One sad day, the energetic dog digs through the fence and gets hit by a car. In addition to his other injuries, his ankle is broken, requiring surgery and a temporary splint. He then starts off on a slow road to recovery with the family. Joey’s first-person narration is upbeat but not always consistent. Sometimes, his speech is cute and simple: “My parents have a lot of rules for me. They have rules for whether I can jump up on the sofa or not.” At other times, though, his language is oddly stilted; for example, after he unsuccessfully tries to convince Dad to let him go for a run, he exclaims: “So many subsequent mornings I arose with hope, only to settle into a sense of failure and disappointment.” Unimaginative daily details regarding the humans’ rituals slow the plot. Some events contain asides with forgettable, uninteresting information, such as the details of Joey’s lineage. The book’s strength, though, is its humorous comparisons of humans’ and dogs’ expectations; Joey, for example, thinks that the sound of a training clicker means that it’s time to play a game involving running away. These witty contrasts will elicit chuckles, particularly from readers with high-maintenance pets. Despite the book’s uneven structure, dog lovers will find that they have a soft spot for Joey’s nonstop energy and fun-loving personality.
An often pleasant slice of a dog’s life.Pub Date: March 18, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-9915149-2-2
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Ivy Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 27, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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