Meanwhile, Betty, in the less than tender grips of the hospital staff, is blown off when she learns to her great dismay that her own (WASP) doctor is off in Manhattan for a fancy anniversary dinner and she will be attended by a (Jewish) doctor she's never met before.
It takes time to build the muscle and upper body strength to haul yourself up, and hands get sore and tender from gripping the bar.
The exploits of the narrator and her girlfriend, Pip, who "saw herself as a charming street urchin, a pet for wealthy mothers," as they cope with a roach-infested apartment, break up and reconnect, are both tender and gripping.
'I want to suck you,' she said, descending … She loosed his trousers, pulled away his underwear and gripped him with fingers tender enough to hold a tiny bird.
A house-made peanut sauce flavored with red curry paste and coconut milk stars alongside the chicken satay; it's creamy and nutty and just sticky enough to grip the tender meat.
Whatever You Love is a masterfully constructed novel, at once gripping and tender.
In "Kippenberger: The Artist and His Families, Susanne Kippenbergerr, the youngest of his four sisters, offers a tender, reasonably cleareyed, oddly gripping account of her only brother's headlong plunge through life.
First staged at the Stratford Festival in Ontario in 2002 (and partially recast for Lincoln Center), Jonathan Miller's gripping, remarkably tender production was the most accessible I had ever seen.
The resulting story is both gripping and tender toward each of its characters, if burdened with the occasional overwrought metaphor, which may distract some readers.
The Dear Evan Hansen score is searing: bounteously tuneful music, with lyrics that range from gripping to tender to laugh-out-loud funny.
