Related Subjects: Author Index Reviews Page 1 2 3
Book reviews for "Young,_Alison" sorted by average review score:

Young Wolf's First Hunt
Published in Hardcover by Random House Value Pub (1998)
Authors: Janice Shefelman and Alison Hart
Amazon base price: $2.99
Average review score:

A GREAT BOOK
I really enjoyed reading this book. it covors problems that most average 6th grade girls have. Like, a girl getting over her fears of horses, homesickness, and dealing with freinds. This book is a must read for those going into boarding school! A FANTASTIC BOOK! happy reading! :)


No Place for Kids
Published in Paperback by Roussan Publishers (15 April, 1999)
Author: Alison Lohans
Amazon base price: $4.95
Average review score:

good book!
this book was a real easy read. it took me half a day, but i really enjoyed it. it seemed real, the author did a great job describing everything in a short period of time. poor sarah and jen. lol.

Sweet, Sad, and Loving
I bought this book "No Place for Kids" at the Young Author's Confrence in 1999 in Montreal when I was 11 years old. I read it and loved it! The story is of a pair of sisters struggling to survive life on the streets despite an inconciderate father floating from one county to another. This book moved me in a real way. I absolutly adored it! Great job Alison Lohans!


Dreamhouse
Published in Unknown Binding by Secker & Warburg ()
Author: Alison Habens
Amazon base price: $
Average review score:

"High" Dream
Dreamhouse by Alison Habens was one of the weirdest novels I have ever read. The book caught my attention because I thought I would be able to relate to the main character (Celia Small) by the way she dreams about what her engagement party would be like and how she had been planning the event since she was little. But as I got further into the book I found out that things did not go as planned because half of the people that surrounded Celia were "high" (on drugs), including her! I do not do drugs nor do I enjoy reading about people who do, but if that is your cup of tea then this is your book. As a novel I give Dreamhouse three stars, but I do not recommend it to anyone.

found at last
I read this book about five years ago and loved it - lent to some one and lost it. And now I've found it at Amason I can have a copy of my own again. Such a fabulous cavalcade of events takes Atwood's edible woman and turns even her upside down.

A Jammy New Twist on the Twisted Lewis Carroll Classic
Celia Small, the prissy Alice-wannabe protagonist, dreams only of her upcoming wedding which she has planned to every neurotic detail. However, events unfolding around her engagement dinner party explode in her face and backfire most miserably.

She shares a house with freaky, free-spirited roommates: Cath, in particular, has baked up a batch of sinfully psycho-tropic jam tarts and is also hosting THE ultimate dress-up theme party- WONDERLAND.

Celia, distressed at the failure of her dinner, escapes to the kitchen and is lured into Cath's world of jam tarts and altered reality. As Celia breaks through barriers by breaking her staid rules of living, she discovers a life worth living, all her own.

Allison Habens tells this "Alice" tale in a fresh, immediate perspective, at times as poetic as Carroll himself albeit not quite as convoluted. The plot, however, does turn as much as a turnstile, but always stylishly and with plenty of character description and dialogue to back it up.

With witty insights into modern, if fanciful relationships, "Dreamhouse" makes for a wonderful find...over tarts and tea...


Backstreet Boys: Backstage Pass: A Photo Scrapbook
Published in Paperback by Scholastic (1998)
Author: Lauren Alison
Amazon base price: $5.99
Average review score:

These pix of BSB are sooooo hot!
As all people know the Backstreet Boys are so sexy! These pix show how cute their faces really are!! Every Bsb fan should own this book,or isn't a BSB fan at all.

My kids love this book!!!
And so do I! This was the very first Backstreet Boys book I bought for my 7 year old son, and we all love it. The photos are awesome, and the author does a great job "telling us" about each of these five great guys. If you don't already have it, buy it today!

This book is the bomb
Backstreet Boys are thee most handsomest guys that ever walked the earth. In this book there are heart-throbing pictures that make a girl/woman just want to show the world, on the other hand there is also lots of info and biographies on the boys. Last there is also the hunk to be Aaron Carter aww how cute. Remember fans keep the Backstreet pride alive and keep the Aaron pride alive.


The Bostonians (Vintage Books/the Library of America)
Published in Paperback by Vintage Books (1991)
Authors: Henry James, LuAnn Walther, and Alison Lurie
Amazon base price: $10.50
Average review score:

A different kind of novel than I'm used to
I finished reading this book only a few weeks ago for a college class I'm in. It certainly wasn't the kind of book I'd pick up just on my own, but I wouldn't say I didn't like it.

The story is set primarily in Boston and somewhat in New York during the 1880's. At the request of his cousin Olive Chancellor, southern lawyer Basil Ransom comes to visit. He accompanies her to a meeting where the young Verena Tarrant speaks wonderfully on women's rights. Olive is so impressed with Verena, she starts what's debatably a lesbian relationship with her, but Ransom is taken with Verena as well and so a struggle begins between the two for Verena's affections.

I think Henry James does an excellent job of giving complete descriptions of each character and you really get a sense of who they are. Olive comes across as rigid and passionate, Verena as young, full of life and curious and Basil as sexist and determined. Basil uses all his ability to wrench Verena from Olive. As I mentioned, the relationship between Verena and Olive is debatable. There are no sex scenes in this novel, but the implication is there. Additionally, I've learned in the class for which I read this novel that many women during this time period engaged in very intense romantic relationships which may or may not be described as sexual.

There are of course other characters such as Verena's parents and other women's rights activists, but the whole focus of the novel is on this struggle for Verena. It wouldn't be completely unfair to say that in some ways nothing much happens in this novel. It's truly a character driven story. There aren't really antagonists and protagonists in the story, but more just people whom all have faults and are just trying to make the right decisions. Although my description of Basil above may sound like a bad guy and although he's unapologetically sexist, he perhaps is no worse than Olive who sometimes seems to be using Verena, a young woman whose thoughts and feelings are maleable. At its heart, the novel is still a love story. Overall, I'd say this is probably worth reading if you like novels about this time period, about love or if you like this author. I wouldn't go so far as to say I'd read another novel by James, but I don't regret reading this.

independence versus romance
The astonishing thing about this book -- and a lot of Henry James's writing -- is his insight into the problems of women. This book deals with the problem of independence and freedom. Most of us, let's admit it, love the idea of being swept off our feet by some competent, assertive male. It's a real turn-on. If you don't believe it, check out how many successful professional women secretly read historical romances by the boxload. The problem comes the next morning when he starts to take control, bit by bit, of your entire life. In this book you have Olive, who is not, I think, a lesbian but someone who is very lonely and doesn't trust men and Verena, who likes men just fine, but is, for the moment anyway, under the spell of Olive and her feminist ideology. Are these our only options? Verena Makes her choice, but James notes that the tears she sheds may not, unhappily, be her last.

Subtle isn¿t quite the right word....
James after 1898 was too subtle, too often employing apposition to add layers like coats of paint to each observation. Works like The Ambassadors (1903) rely on the reader's powers of synthesis, which can be in turns exhilarating or frustrating. The Bostonians (1885) is an extremely straightforward, dramatic, cruel, hilarious, political, compassionate love story and one of the best novels by anyone. Olive Chancellor is tragic: with so much love behind her cold, horrified stares. Basil Ransom is magnetic, but an educated idiot savant whose passion and will are nothing other than natural talent. Verena Tarrant has nothing but natural talent--she is an organism that throbs with passion like a finely tuned Geiger counter. Whether the private turmoil of sex and marriage finally draw her from the political sisterhood, and what happens to queer women like Olive, are high-stakes, human questions that James presents with sheer drama and almost unbelievable insight.


Foreign Affairs
Published in Library Binding by Bt Bound (1999)
Author: Alison Lurie
Amazon base price: $14.95
List price: $21.35 (that's 30% off!)
Average review score:

A masterpiece about England and America
I recently re-read Foreign Affairs, and having adored it twelve years ago was amazed at how delightful, clever and funny it still is. Two American academics, the plain, wryly self-pitying Vinnie, and handsome young Fred, are both English teachers on sabbatical from Corinth University in London. Vinnie loves England, which she conflates with her love of children's classics, and a sort of prim moral and social superiority. Sitting next to an ignorant Mid-Westerner, Chuck, she disdains him pretty much as Lurie's readers would, too, only to be gradually captivated by his underlying good qualities.
Fred, too, finds his miserable experience of London transformed by an affair with a titled actress, who despite her refined charms (the complete opposite to those of his estranged Jewish wife, Ruth) turns out to be less wholesome than perceived. As with all Lurie's novels, the characters in it are interlinked to those in previous books (Ruth is Ruth Zimmern, whom some may remember from Only Children). The allusions to Henry James are done with grace, but what really impresses is the wit and perfection of style Lurie brings to her subject of American innocence and British corruption. For British readers it's wonderfully refreshing to see ourselves through such a diamond-sharp lens... I also recommend The Last Resort as a mordant satire on death and love.

Witty, poignant and charming...Lurie writes like a dream
Alison Lurie's "Foreign Affairs" is quite the most witty, poignant and charming book I have read all year. Lurie had me in her spell right from the opening chapter where I was struck by her sureness of touch and intuitive understanding of the workings of the human heart. Her sense of humour is so honest and spot-on it's uncanny. She had me in stitches no sooner than Vinnie Miner boarded the plane and found to her dismay the unlikeliest of travelling companions seated next to her and determined to make conversation. Lurie's protagonists, Vinnie Miner and Fred Turner, are both living, breathing individuals everyone recognises. They aren't "types" but real people, not particularly distinguished or virtuous, with insecurities, but nevertheless people you feel compassion for. Vinnie and Fred are thrown together, sharing the same broad social milieu and developing romantic attachments with the unlikeliest of liasons. Of the two, Vinnie's story is by far the more convincing and successful. It is also heartwarming and touching. In contrast, Fred's liason is a little bland and one dimensional but saved by a dark twist at the end which I won't give away. "Foreign Affairs" has to be Lurie's masterpiece. It is a truly delightful and exceptional literary achievement by a novelist whose trademark is a graceful old school charm that's so rare to find these days. It richly deserves its Pulitzer Prize winning status and I would recommend it to anyone who reads to be moved and entertained.

ultimate US/UK airplane read
Lurie updates Henry James's perspectives on Americans in England while covering the love lives of the middle-aged. The book is beautifully written, even when describing Vinnie Miner, 54-year-old female English professor, settling in for the flight to London: "In this culture, where energy and egotism are rewarded in the young and good-looking, plain aging women are supposed to be self-effacing, uncomplaining--to take up as little space and breathe as little air as possible. All very well, she thinks, if you travel with someone dear to you or at least familiar: someone who will help you stow away your coat, tuck a pillow behind your head, find you a newspaper--or if you choose, converse with you.

But what of those who travel alone? Why should Vinnie Miner, whose comfort has been disregarded by others for most of her adult life, disregard her own comfort? Why should she allow her coat, hat, and belongings to be crushed by the coats and hats and belongings of

younger, larger, handsomer persons? Why should she sit alone for seven or eight hours, pillowless and chilled, reading an outdated copy of _Punch_, with her feet swollen and her pale amber eyes watering from the smoke of the cigarette fiends in the adjoining seats?"

Much ink is spent on the life of the plain woman, notably the plain middle-aged woman:

"Within the last couple of years she has in a sense caught up with, even passed, some of her better-equipped contemporaries. The comparison of her appearance to that of other women of her age is no longer a constant source of mortification. she is no better looking than she ever was, but they have lost more ground. ... Her features have not taken on the injured, strained expression of the former beauty, nor does she paint and decorate and simper and coo in a desperate attempt to arouse the male interest she feels to be her due. She is not consumed with rage and grief at the cessation of attentions that were in any case moderate, undependable, and intermittent. As a result men--even men she has been intimate with--do not now gaze upon her with dismay, as upon a beloved landscape devastated by fire, flood, or urban development. ..."

Lurie is also very sharp on tourism: "His earlier anomie, Fred realizes now, was occupational. Psychologically speaking, tourists are disoriented, ghostly beings; they walk London's streets and enter its buildings in a thin ectoplasmal form, like a double-exposed photograph. London isn't real to them, and to Londoners they are equally unreal--pale, featureless, two-dimensional figures who clog up the traffic and block the view."


The Guy I Left Behind (Love Stories, No 20)
Published in Paperback by Bantam Books (1997)
Authors: Ali Brooke and Alison Pollet
Amazon base price: $3.99
Average review score:

I'm sorry to say that it's boring
Here's the story.Tara get a audition and her boyfriend is not happy for her.I never know why she stay with him.He's a total loser.Anyway,she has to move away from his boyfriend and well,they start being apart.And he kiss her best friend!! The boring part is it's about two people that already fall in love when most teenageers wants to know is HOW two people fall in love.

I loved it. The characters were very true to life.
I really loved this book. I couldn't put it down. Part of me wanted Tara to dump Lance and date Marcus De La Nova, but part of me wanted her to stay with Lance. I've had the book 5 months and I've already read it 8 times. It's a definite must read book.

Oh man...this one rocks!
TGILB is so funny and true! I had a band and I can tell you that there's nothing like a girl to break a band apart. Reading this book gave me a cool new perspective to look at- the girlfriend's. But who cares what a drummer says, right? Seriously, anybody that plays music or dates musicians (which is any cool girl) needs this book! It cracked me up too.


Windows Millennium Edition: The Complete Reference
Published in Paperback by McGraw-Hill Osborne Media (25 October, 2000)
Authors: John R. Levine, Margaret L. Young, Doug Muder, Alison Barrows, Rima Regas, Margy Levine Young, and Margaret Levine Young
Amazon base price: $39.99
Average review score:

Good for novices or at least non-tweakers
Maybe this is the book that should have come with Windows ME, since using help in Windows is maddening. I perused several books and this looked like the best of the bunch. It does cover tha basics fairly well. However, if you want more than that, and you want to know the what, where, how, and why of ME, get another book. The CD that comes with the book is essentially the book (only) on CD and it lacks an index, which (IMHO) is a glaring omission. I guess this can happen to any book, but after using it a few times the spine broke and only the cover was holding the two halves together. I'm a tweaker by nature, and I wanted more than general information. In spite of it's size (almost a 1000 pages) and its title ("The Complete Reference") it's not as complete as I need. It may be for you.

E-book edition is on the CD
I'm one of the authors, and the CD that comes with this book contains the complete text of the book as an e-book. This means that you can keep the CD in your drive as you use your computer, and look items up in the CD's glossary, which serves as its index.

When we wrote the book, we had in mind intermediate Windows users -- people who already know the basics, but need to look up seldom-used commands and troubleshoot problems. We've included lots of step-by-step procedures as well as explanations of Windows concepts.

If you use Windows 98 or Windows XP, we have editions for those versions as well ("Windows 98: The Complete Reference" and "Windows XP: The Complete Reference") -- they also come with complete e-book editions on their CDs.

Enjoy!


Ask Allie (Girl Talk)
Published in Paperback by Golden Pr (1991)
Authors: Alison Bell and Allison Bell
Amazon base price: $2.95
Average review score:

Girl Talk Rulz
I read all the Girl Talk books and loves them.


Last Fling (Spring Break, No 3)
Published in Paperback by Harper Mass Market Paperbacks (1991)
Authors: Alison Page and Allison Page
Amazon base price: $3.50
Average review score:

unexpected love
Megan goes to the beach on spring break hoping to find a thrilling romance. But the only guy she seems to spend any kind of quality time with is her hometown friend, Tom. He's cute and sweet and they have a lot in common, but Megan has known him so long that she doesn't realize what other, impartial girls can see--Tom is a major catch. Tom likes Megan, but he is insecure because he knows that she is too blind to notice him as boyfriend material. Will Megan realize that true love is right under her nose?


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