A fine tale of kids’ games with surprisingly high stakes.
A snake pit of cutthroat ethical ambiguity and twisted psychodrama—otherwise known as junior high girls sports—is explored in this rich, sprawling coming-of-age saga.
In the wealthy suburb of Lake Oswego, Oregon, athletics rule the lives of many kids—and even more so their parents. Among them are seventh-grader Layla Blessing and her girlfriends on the Lake Oswego Junior High Lakers basketball squad and the local soccer club; Layla’s dad, Alex, who winds up coaching both teams to his daughter’s frequent exasperation; Emily, a Chinese-American soccer whiz with an eating disorder brought on by her tiger-parents’ perfectionism; and Chelsea, a court phenom for whom basketball is the only way of engaging with her father. A year in the lives of these and many other characters proceeds through practices, organizational meetings, tournament trips, miscellaneous school activities, and games that the author narrates with detailed play-by-play and strategic analyses that are gripping enough for a Final Four showdown. Journalist Duin (Oil and Water, 2011) uses the subculture of teen sports as a window onto the soul of suburbia, on its genteel yet manic competitiveness and its outsized investments, both material and psychological, in the achievements of offspring. The narrative unfolds in long, luxuriant scenes of ordinary life: girls tanning and gossiping on a dock, awkward school dances, bantering corporate golf games, chance encounters at Starbucks, dinner tables seething with unspoken recriminations. Seemingly trivial sports contests anchor an adult novel that shows us shadows—a charismatic coach turns out to be a masterfully manipulative predator—and real depth in the girls’ (and their parents’) struggles to understand the difference between the rules of the game and genuine morality. Duin’s subtle prose renders all this with pitch-perfect characterizations and razor-sharp social nuance. Sometimes he lays on the pitiless existentialism a bit too thick (“I’ll miss the savage beauty of it,” muses one hard man, reflecting on the ruthless Darwinian culling of weak from strong in seventh-grade girls’ soccer. “Honor and dignity don’t win in the end”). Still, there’s drama beyond the scoreboard in watching these children—and adults—grow up a little more.
A fine tale of kids’ games with surprisingly high stakes.Pub Date: May 6, 2015
ISBN: 978-1618460127
Page Count: 470
Publisher: Library Partners Press
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
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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