A funny, smartly observant, and philosophical animal tale; a heartwarming read.
A pet dog and cat share their views on small-town life in this novella.
Ralph is an indefatigably curious pound puppy who joined his adoptive family when he was 6 months old. Murray is a savvy tortoiseshell cat who lives next door and just happens to be Ralph’s best friend. They live in 1950s Murfreesboro, a “quaint little hamlet…where there was never a need to lock your doors.” Written from Ralph’s perspective, the story shows the two animals poring over the minutiae of everyday life by reading each other’s thoughts. Ralph is a self-appointed head of security, watching over his family’s two young boys, Tommy and Ricky. He is eager to vet characters like Zeke, a storytelling vagrant the boys befriend while building a secret fort. Meanwhile, Murray is proud of virtually eradicating the mouse population on his side of the fence, but he still has time to learn new dance crazes, like the Twist. When Ralph and Murray get together, the scope of their conversations proves entertainingly limitless, from discussing Uncle Buck, who lives in an urn on the mantle, to the reasons humans have coins. The first-person (or perhaps first-canine) narrative does fine work of getting into a dog’s mindset. Canine owners will smile knowingly at Ralph’s behavior: “I broke up the boredom by shuttling back and forth between the two bedrooms. Snuggling into Tom’s bedspread, I watched him stare at books.” Glaze is a skillfully descriptive writer who effortlessly brings the world surrounding the animals to life: “Wintertime was fading, and a warm afternoon sun was beginning to coax the jonquils out of the ground along the fence line.” Ralph and Murray possess shrewd natures, which, when discussing matters such as using alligators for “shoes and belts,” allow them to pose questions that will make readers reflect on controversial human practices: “Is that mean, treating animals like that?” On other occasions, the pair’s innocence is endearingly hilarious: “ ‘Do you know what an Everglade is?’ I said.” “It’s air spray, right?” The author’s furry characters are thoroughly convincing and will immediately draw readers into a world where divebombing blue jays are among the biggest problems. The result is deliciously cozy escapism that simultaneously poses subtle yet pertinent questions about how readers live their lives.
A funny, smartly observant, and philosophical animal tale; a heartwarming read.Pub Date: Jan. 10, 2024
ISBN: 978-1737295136
Page Count: 110
Publisher: ScreenShot Publishers
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 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
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
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