An entertaining send-up of the most annoying traits of animals and humans.
A dog sues her owners for not taking her for a walk in Hines’ winsome comic novel.
In an exaggerated version of California, where animals have most of the privileges—and jobs—that humans do, a golden retriever named Velvet files a lawsuit against her owners, Albert and Marietta Sweeney, of Pomona, California, and their kids, Billy and Becky, for denying her “life, liberty, and pursuing happiness” under the California Animal Humanities Act. She specifically complains that the family has failed to take her for a walk for 17 straight days while she languished in the fenced-in yard and developed joint pain. Velvet’s lawyer, a slick cat named Bogart, thinks her case will be a landmark decision for pets’ rights, and also greedily reckons that “he could get about ten million in the settlement of Velvet’s suit and persuade Velvet to take her million” (Bogart’s lawsuit is also a criminal prosecution—why not?—that could send Albert to jail for years). Albert’s attorney, a pig named Winston, thinks he has an equally solid defense: Albert says Billy and Becky faithfully walked Velvet a mile each day during the period in question, and he has the dog-walking logs to prove it. The stage is set for a courtroom showdown before judge Julius Fox and a jury of kangaroos and porcupines, replete with lawyerly histrionics: “Isn’t it true, Mr. Scott, that you are not only the president of the Save the Snail Foundation but also its only member...[a]nd that in Oklahoma, where you last lived, you had been the president and sole member of the Save the Snake Foundation, and that you are wanted in that state for receiving money without doing anything for it?” The tide starts to turn against Albert when a string of witnesses swear they didn’t see Velvet out for her walks during the 17 days, with the most damning testimony coming from the Sweeney’s sinister cat, Lothar.
While ostensibly about animals’ struggles against human neglect and abuse, Hines’ tale is equally an exploration of the many ways in which animals inconvenience, irritate, and endanger humans—especially Albert, who struggles to preserve his property and finances from destruction by Velvet’s dogged boisterousness. The author relates these depredations in droll, deadpan prose, both from the shell-shocked human viewpoint (“Tore right ankle on run with Velvet,” notes Billy in a typical dog-walking log entry. “She pulled me over stones in the ditch. Got nose scratched on wire fence. I just love these times”) and the ebullient canine perspective (“[T]he chewing was just great, and I had a great desire to chew: window sills, chair legs, shoes, and socks,” Velvet recalls of her time living in the Sweeney house before she was exiled to the back yard. “Yet for some reason the Sweeneys seemed to have an equally great desire that I not chew.” The spoof of legal jousting is breezy and sharp-witted. (“[N]ote that the kangaroos have such small heads there can’t be much in them,” observes Winston. “We have ended up with a very good jury indeed.”) Color photographs of the non-hominid species in the text will remind readers how funny animals can look; fauna skeptics can enjoy Hines’s saga as much as animal lovers do.
An entertaining send-up of the most annoying traits of animals and humans.Pub Date: June 5, 2023
ISBN: 9798395944511
Page Count: 102
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Oct. 6, 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
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
The sequel to It Ends With Us (2016) shows the aftermath of domestic violence through the eyes of a single mother.
Lily Bloom is still running a flower shop; her abusive ex-husband, Ryle Kincaid, is still a surgeon. But now they’re co-parenting a daughter, Emerson, who's almost a year old. Lily won’t send Emerson to her father’s house overnight until she’s old enough to talk—“So she can tell me if something happens”—but she doesn’t want to fight for full custody lest it become an expensive legal drama or, worse, a physical fight. When Lily runs into Atlas Corrigan, a childhood friend who also came from an abusive family, she hopes their friendship can blossom into love. (For new readers, their history unfolds in heartfelt diary entries that Lily addresses to Finding Nemo star Ellen DeGeneres as she considers how Atlas was a calming presence during her turbulent childhood.) Atlas, who is single and running a restaurant, feels the same way. But even though she’s divorced, Lily isn’t exactly free. Behind Ryle’s veneer of civility are his jealousy and resentment. Lily has to plan her dates carefully to avoid a confrontation. Meanwhile, Atlas’ mother returns with shocking news. In between, Lily and Atlas steal away for romantic moments that are even sweeter for their authenticity as Lily struggles with child care, breastfeeding, and running a business while trying to find time for herself.
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-668-00122-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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