A teenager discovers an unexpected talent and runs with it in this perceptive cautionary tale from Hautman (Mr. Was, 1996). Denn Doyle discovers a quicker way to raise the money for a used car than summer lawn work when an acquaintance invites him into a poker game. He wins, and keeps on winning, and soon he’s winning so much that he lets his friend Murky take over the mowing business completely. Armed with a fake ID, he becomes a fixture at the local casino, winning over $10,000 in one glorious 30-hour visit. Money has lost its glamour; Denn loves the game’s ebb and flow, and spotting the “tells,” or gestures, through which other players betray themselves. Although Hautman trots out some typecast teaching characters—the wise old card sharp, the sober but alcoholic Irish priest, and Murky, who becomes the worst sort of compulsive gambler—he also captures Denn’s calculated, almost inhuman concentration “in the zone,” and his profound satisfaction afterwards. In a climax that reads like the Big Game in an above-average sports novel, Denn returns to the table (against his parents’ wishes) to attempt to rescue Murky, and in a high-stakes confrontation with a professional gambler, makes an absolute killing. He ends up owning the town’s finest gourmet restaurant; still only 16, he waits in his office for the next game, the next hand. Readers will understand too well how empty his triumph is. (Fiction. 12-15)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-689-81759-2
Page Count: 163
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1998
The wish-fulfilling title and sun-washed, catalog-beautiful teens on the cover will be enticing for girls looking for a...
Han’s leisurely paced, somewhat somber narrative revisits several beach-house summers in flashback through the eyes of now 15-year-old Isabel, known to all as Belly.
Belly measures her growing self by these summers and by her lifelong relationship with the older boys, her brother and her mother’s best friend’s two sons. Belly’s dawning awareness of her sexuality and that of the boys is a strong theme, as is the sense of summer as a separate and reflective time and place: Readers get glimpses of kisses on the beach, her best friend’s flirtations during one summer’s visit, a first date. In the background the two mothers renew their friendship each year, and Lauren, Belly’s mother, provides support for her friend—if not, unfortunately, for the children—in Susannah’s losing battle with breast cancer. Besides the mostly off-stage issue of a parent’s severe illness there’s not much here to challenge most readers—driving, beer-drinking, divorce, a moment of surprise at the mothers smoking medicinal pot together.
The wish-fulfilling title and sun-washed, catalog-beautiful teens on the cover will be enticing for girls looking for a diversion. (Fiction. 12-14)Pub Date: May 5, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4169-6823-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2009
BOOK REVIEW
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BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel,...
Adventure drags our heroine all over the map of fantasyland while giving her the opportunity to use her smarts.
Elisa—Princess Lucero-Elisa de Riqueza of Orovalle—has been chosen for Service since the day she was born, when a beam of holy light put a Godstone in her navel. She's a devout reader of holy books and is well-versed in the military strategy text Belleza Guerra, but she has been kept in ignorance of world affairs. With no warning, this fat, self-loathing princess is married off to a distant king and is embroiled in political and spiritual intrigue. War is coming, and perhaps only Elisa's Godstone—and knowledge from the Belleza Guerra—can save them. Elisa uses her untried strategic knowledge to always-good effect. With a character so smart that she doesn't have much to learn, body size is stereotypically substituted for character development. Elisa’s "mountainous" body shrivels away when she spends a month on forced march eating rat, and thus she is a better person. Still, it's wonderfully refreshing to see a heroine using her brain to win a war rather than strapping on a sword and charging into battle.
Despite the stale fat-to-curvy pattern, compelling world building with a Southern European, pseudo-Christian feel, reminiscent of Naomi Kritzer's Fires of the Faithful (2002), keeps this entry fresh. (Fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-06-202648-4
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: July 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2011
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