Sassy and packed with more plot twists than a Real World marathon: likely to be snapped up eagerly by teen and preteen...
The further adventures of Jessica Darling, she of the overly detailed journal.
The brainy and independent Jessica (Sloppy Firsts, not reviewed), author of this sequel’s journal entries, is one of the more endearing offspring of these post–Bridget Jones years. Jessica is in her senior year at Pineville High, just another horrible high school somewhere in New Jersey filled with all the usual cliques and adolescent idiocy. Jessica knows she should be getting her act together and not thinking about too-cute Marcus—who she almost lost her virginity to in the first Jessica novel—and how now he’s sleeping with every girl who looks his way. Her clueless “friends” embody a range of types. There’s Sara, a bubbly screamer who interjects “Omigod!” every three words; Bridget, a gorgeous but insecure blond who says “like” every three words (see the difference); Manda, who spouts pop-feminist babble when she’s not snaking other girl’s boyfriends; and so on. Jessica misses her best friend, Hope, who moved away, and she has to find out who’s behind the “Pineville Low” gossip e-mail that’s been making snooty comments about her virginal status. Then comes Len, a terminal geek who’s now devastatingly cute and seems to like her. Although one has to get past all the CAPITALIZING and EXCITING DEVELOPMENTS!!! (this is an adolescent’s journal, after all), Jessica’s less-than-earth-shattering life (What college will accept her? Will Len kiss her? What’s Marcus up to?) are tossed across the page with breezy bravado. Cosmo and Glamour writer McCafferty has the post-’90s teenage mindset down to a tee and can reference trash culture with the best of them, but problems arise when she ventures beyond the stereotype.
Sassy and packed with more plot twists than a Real World marathon: likely to be snapped up eagerly by teen and preteen McCafferty fans.Pub Date: April 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-609-80791-9
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Three Rivers/Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2003
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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