A charmingly breezy tone marks this warm appraisal of our addiction to stuff.
If things are not people, then why do they seem to matter so much? A hoarder and organizational expert clash in this light, amusing novel from Smolinski (The Next Thing on my List, 2007, etc.).
Lucy Bloom, author of Things are Not People, a book no one seems to have read, is ironically bereft of possessions. Aside from her beloved red Mustang, Lucy has sold her home and its contents, using the proceeds to put her teenage son, Ash, in rehab. Admirable, but now Ash won’t speak to her and somehow she lost her boyfriend, Daniel, along the way, too. Broke and lonely, Lucy lands a dream job: help Marva Meier Rios clear her house of clutter in 52 days, and she’ll have enough cash to get back on her feet. Of course the reclusive artist makes the job impossible, forcing Lucy to debate the merits of every fork, candlestick and flamingo-shaped umbrella holder. Under pressure from Marva’s son to get the job done, not to mention pressure from the gorgeous Niko to take a break, Lucy surprises herself by asking Daniel for help. Just as Lucy tries to help Marva de-clutter her house, so Daniel helps Lucy de-clutter her memory. Lucy and Marva must accept that things may not be people, but people do bind themselves to their things with memories and emotions. Only after Marva confesses the big secret of her life—the secret that has bound her past emotions into all of the objects in her home—is she able to let go of the clutter and begin anew. And Lucy may have let go of a lot of things, but she hasn’t released the memories—some true, some misremembered—that bind her to Ash and Daniel.
A charmingly breezy tone marks this warm appraisal of our addiction to stuff.Pub Date: May 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4516-6075-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: April 1, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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