Easy-reading verses, replete with pithy truths and charming illustrations.
Widick’s book of poetry champions life’s small joys.
One of a trilogy, this poetry collection plainly announces its intentions to serve as “a gentle reminder that we don’t have to look far for things that warm our soul. Joy, the author suggests, can be found “in everyday things.” The poems contained within this book illuminate life’s simplest pleasures, including enjoying a cup of coffee alongside a copy of Rumi’s poetry just as the sun rises (“Sweet Sips”). The beauty of animals grazing on gentle hills is noted in the poem “Antelope,” (“Big-picture scope / Grazing on the amazing / Unbinding leaps / Top of the hillside / Along the waterside”) as is the satisfaction yielded by a sturdy drinking vessel “saved from [a] Cuba trip” in “Solid as a Rock Tumbler.” Other poems, like “Success,” are slightly broader in scope, using clipped lines to reframe success as a state defined by warmth, generosity, and “tenderness” rather than by achievement. The visual elements of the collection lend character and warmth to the author’s words—each poem is rendered in intricate, willowy script, accompanied by illustrator Taylor-Pestell’s line art depicting such subjects as astronauts, animals, and a woman serenely watering a tree that springs from the clouds. The poetry itself is fairly sparse and simple. It can register as familiar life advice, more focused on jaunty rhyme than content (“Chase and Bear Hug / Your Dreams in the Express Lane / at Your Own Pace / Your Sweet Way in a Worldly Vast Array”). For readers inclined toward the simple pleasures the book promotes, the optimism and ornate illustrations these pages contain offer their own appeal. The passion that the collaborating writer and artist demonstrate is infectious, lending an upbeat charm to the work overall.
Easy-reading verses, replete with pithy truths and charming illustrations.Pub Date: May 22, 2023
ISBN: 9781088111925
Page Count: 28
Publisher: North Coast Post
Review Posted Online: April 21, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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