Two paws up.
It’s tough to resist a good story that features four-legged creatures, which highlight this surprisingly upbeat tale about a son who returns home following the death of his long estranged father.
Cyrus Mills isn’t a warm, fuzzy kind of person, and choosing a career as a veterinary pathologist seems a logical choice: He’s following in his late mother’s footsteps, and he gets to work in solitude, which he prefers. When Robert Cobb, Cyrus’ father, dies and bequeaths Bedside Manor for Sick Animals to him, he returns to his former home in a small town in Vermont. Cyrus is eager to sell his inheritance and leave Eden Falls behind. He has few fond memories of his life there, except for the time he spent with his mother, and he needs the money from the sale to fund a legal battle to reinstate his license, which has been temporarily suspended following charges of wrongdoing filed by his former employer. But Cyrus quickly discovers that in addition to being a workaholic and an absentee dad, Dr. Cobb was mired in debt. Unless Cyrus can prove that his father’s heavily mortgaged veterinary clinic is worth a potential buyer’s investment—within the week—he’ll lose the sale, and it appears that a sinister banker and an anonymous blackmailer might be rooting against him. With a light touch and conversational tone, Trout (Ever by My Side, 2011, etc.) delivers a doggone charming tale. Rather than dispensing an overload of schmaltz, which is difficult to avoid in a feel-good story that introduces a magnitude of furry friends and their often eccentric owners, the author manages to successfully pull off a straightforward, energizing story with a message that doesn’t choke on its own sweetness. Cyrus, of course, transforms during the week as he’s forced to interact with each character, revisit his past and contemplate his future. He becomes an excellent healer, and with the help of a group of caring individuals, including a gentle mentor, an attractive waitress, a gruff receptionist and all of his four-legged friends, he also becomes one of the healed.
Two paws up.Pub Date: Feb. 12, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4013-1088-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Jan. 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2013
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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