An earnest effort from a natural storyteller.
After her suicide, a mother hovers beyond life, observing her family and trying to help them move on.
Maddy had shown no signs of suicidal behavior and didn’t leave a note; her life actually seemed pretty great, and in the passages she narrates from beyond the grave, she agrees (hence the title). She adored her teenage daughter, Eve, and her hardworking husband, Brady. Though they had their share of fights, Maddy and her family lived privileged, protected lives, a steep improvement from the neglectful households in which both Maddy and Brady were raised. The mood is one of frustration: Maddy’s frustration that she left her family in this horrible state of grief and, in their own narrative passages, Brady's and Eve’s frustration with the lack of answers. This is eased slightly when Maddy discovers that she can concentrate thoughts and energy down at her loved ones to guide their behavior and remind them of her love. She also tries to matchmake Brady with a new woman so he and Eve can again have a mother and wife. Meddling seems uncharacteristic of Maddy, but she has limited time in her interstitial state. Debut author Fabiaschi’s even tone and her characters’ bright intelligence inspire empathy and, for the most part, keep the proceedings away from the maudlin. Great pains are initially taken to explore the main theme: tragedy often has no reason, and those experiencing it must contend with the reasonlessness as well as the loss. As the book goes on, however, this universal poignancy is undercut by plot devices, some melodramatic and some simply unnecessary. But then, when one of the protagonists is a loving, helpful ghost, a certain amount of wishful thinking is part of the deal.
An earnest effort from a natural storyteller.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-250-08487-3
Page Count: 272
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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