Powell's Books - View All of Janet Hamilton's Customer Comments

: Janet Hamilton, March 1, 2007
What an honor to encounter an author unafraid of helping children to face whatever complications happen to occur in their lives. Lucky at age 10 knows that life can be both beautiful and scary. She knows that friends can be adorable and annoying, that losing someone you love challenges you sometimes to find out if you are just plain unlovable. She’s not afraid of facing up to what Alcoholics Anonymous is all about or figuring out the meaning of a word like “scrotum.” She doesn’t have to be protected from the realities of the world around her. She is a resourceful survivor and she knows she needs love. She knows she has a mean gland and she knows how to compensate. She’s trying to take all the complicated strands of her life, including her electrocuted mother, her absent father, and the beloved guardian who she fears will leave her and weave them into a beautiful neat 10 strand knot like her friend Lincoln knows how to create. She takes it all very seriously with a delightful sense of humor. Lucky is a real kid in a real world and she comes alive in a book that deserves medals not banning.
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: Janet Hamilton, March 1, 2007
If you're old enough to remember the Fonz, you're old enough to have a child, or even a grandchild, who experiences some kind of learning challenge, or who has a close buddy who is as charmingly challenged as 4th grader Hank Zipper. This delightful story brings irreverent fun to the solemn diagnosis of dyslexia and every pompous list your teacher ever made you write. Read it out loud to your pet iguana, your brother who can't decipher fractions, or if you tend to see things backward yourself, maybe your sister's nerdy boyfriend will help. The point is, read it, you'll not only feel better, you'll put a lotta zing into your enchiladas.
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: Janet Hamilton, February 21, 2007
Like a Saturday Night Live sketch, this book is not flawless, but it is very funny and almost perfectly embodies obsession and dysfunction in the cynically conceived get a life delusion that passes for the “heroine’s” existence. It’s one of those stay up all night to see how she gets over him reads. The quote that best describes the sarcastic style and tone is: “Once you do something against your better judgment, it gets easier to do something else against your better judgment and pretty soon, you’re doing things against everyone’s better judgment.” Actually, I was so sick of hearing about that obnoxious Eugene Obello that I could hardly bear to go back and search through the book for the name of the neurotic narrator who is so fixated on whatever it is he means to her that she seems to have lost not only her senses but her name. The ending is even harder to believe than all that precedes. Patricia Marx, go directly to Saturday Night Live. On the way, pass GO and collect $$$ to buy more baked potatoes to take out of the oven with your bare hand.
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: Janet Hamilton, January 23, 2007
Laurel Dewey makes an impressive debut with Protector, a gripping thriller that goes far beyond the requirements of the suspense/crime genre to provide penetrating psychological insight into the human condition. In the paranormal spirit of the heroine, I predict that Inspector (or Sergeant!) Jane Perry will soon be solving more cases for the Denver Police Department.
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: Janet Hamilton, January 23, 2007
Young adults as well as older readers will marvel over how laughter and tears mix as they share this stressful year in the life of 18-year-old Hallie Palmer. Hallie, art student-cum-card shark, copes with the death of her father, the nervous breakdown of her mother, the chaos of caring for 8 younger siblings, and the antics of nutty relatives and friends. Pedersen's writing style is appropriately delightful and thoughtful and the unexpected ending both believable and satisfying.
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