An intriguing but uneven tale of environmental activists.
In this novel, a teenager joins the fight to save the Chesapeake Bay from pollution.
Recent high school graduate Donna Burgess gets a position helping a nonprofit to—among other things—prove that a large corporation is polluting Chesapeake Bay. At first, it’s just a summer job, but the pollution is having an impact on her neighborhood. After the group collects water samples, the Chesapeake Bay Coalition’s boat nearly capsizes, either because of age or an act of tampering. “We almost drowned out there,” Donna tells a cohort. This is a recurring theme in the tale—no one is sure if the coalition’s resources are just old or if someone is sabotaging them. Donna gets a crash course in the ups and downs of nonprofit work; she is told she’s the special guestat a fundraiser and dresses up for the event only to discover that she’s actually going to be a server. She also attends important meetings in the hopes of preventing the Glendale Corporation from polluting the bay. But at every step of the way, she and her colleagues encounter Glendale employees willing to pay them to go away. Each time this happens, Donna digs in her heels, willing to fight for her neighborhood instead of letting the coalition compromise. This creates a rift between Donna and others in the coalition who want to accept Glendale’s donation of land for a wildlife refuge even if it won’t stop the corporation from polluting the bay. Donna’s conviction hardens when she learns that many of her neighbors, and possibly her own mother, have been diagnosed with cancer. While Chandler’s book is compact at 212 pages, there are plenty of captivating tangents and subplots and rich environmental details. The protagonist copes with a wide array of intense emotions. There are the teenage hijinks and feelings of angst Donna experiences—normal for a recent high school graduate—and her deep passion for her work with the coalition. But a few of the minor threads—including Donna’s crush on her sister’s boyfriend—distract from the main plot. As a result, Donna is both a dreamy teenager and an uptight scold at times. And even with a positive message, the tone of the story is often cynical, which some readers may find off-putting.
An intriguing but uneven tale of environmental activists.Pub Date: Feb. 21, 2022
ISBN: 979-8420934593
Page Count: 212
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: April 28, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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