Gimmicky romp about letting life surprise you. Gruenenfelder (Misery Loves Cabernet, 2009, etc.) too often relies on sitcom...
Three best friends find their lives taking unexpected turns after a bridal shower game goes awry.
Bride-to-be Nicole thinks she has it all figured out when she rigs a “cake pull” for 23 of her closest pals. This tradition (think fortune cookie) has each lady pulling a “charm” out of the layers of a cake, with each charm symbolizing the puller’s near future. Sounds simple enough, until the guests pull charms other than the ones Nicole pre-selected for them. That means math teacher Mel, who craves a commitment, does not get the engagement ring she wanted, but rather a red-hot chili pepper, symbolizing passion. Soon after, she actually does get a proposal from her longtime boyfriend Fred, followed by the discovery that Fred is a serial cheater, with a string of gals in various locations. Suddenly single, Mel puts herself out on the market, with mixed results. Museum fundraiser Seema, secretly smitten with her hunky best friend Scott, was supposed to get the lusty pepper, but she nabs a shovel, for hard work, instead. And writer Nicole is shocked to get the baby carriage. Not that Nicole is totally against the idea of children, she just does not feel ready to be a mom. Besides, her fiancé Jason, an assistant coach for the NBA, already has two young girls of his own, from his previous marriage. But when Jason’s ex lands a demanding job out of town, Nicole becomes the primary caregiver to Malika and Megan. She adores them, but step-parenthood tests her every which way, putting a strain on her relationship with Jason. Meanwhile, Seema, who isn’t the superstitious type and doesn’t really care about the stupid shovel anyway, gets tired of watching the man she loves date other women, and decides to risk everything by revealing her true feelings.
Gimmicky romp about letting life surprise you. Gruenenfelder (Misery Loves Cabernet, 2009, etc.) too often relies on sitcom one-liners, but her women are smart, likable and good to each other.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-312-61459-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
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
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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