An unconventional love story for independent women.
After repeatedly serving as a bridesmaid in weddings that don't end up happening, a woman starts to worry she’s cursed.
Zoey Marks doesn’t believe in marriage, because she’s not sure it ever works out. At least, it doesn’t seem to work out when she’s involved. After being a bridesmaid for two brides who never made it down the aisle, she couldn’t be less interested in getting engaged herself. Especially not when she has her high-powered job running a nontraditional advertising agency with her friend Sara (one of the brides whose weddings Zoey may have cursed). But then she meets Rylan, her lifelong best friend Hannah’s cousin. Zoey quickly falls passionately in love with Rylan, enough to make her possibly think about questioning her anti-marriage stance. That is, until she’s in yet another wedding that ends before it begins. When Rylan proposes right after Zoey gets back home from the third wedding that wasn’t, Zoey turns him down, unable to promise a forever she can’t truly believe in. Wallowing in heartbreak, Zoey’s one comfort is that at least she won’t have to see Rylan again…that is, until Hannah announces that she’s getting married in Ireland, and she wants Zoey by her side. Rylan will be there, and now Zoey has to juggle seeing him, making sure Hannah’s wedding survives Zoey’s bridesmaid curse, and trying to figure out if she can commit to forever and the future she so desperately wants with Rylan. But the wedding weekend is full of secrets, betrayals, and a scheming best man, and Zoey’s afraid that both she and Hannah might not be headed for a happily-ever-after. Zoey’s narration is quick, clever, and full of zingers, but Greenberg often uses that narration to tell the reader things about Zoey’s relationship with Rylan rather than showing their love develop, which makes it difficult to become invested in them as a couple. The story is much more surprising and boldly messy than the cute cover implies, and readers who aren’t looking for a traditional romantic-comedy structure may relate to Zoey’s quest for happiness and her understanding that it can be found in places other than wedding ceremonies.
An unconventional love story for independent women.Pub Date: Jan. 11, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-2507-9159-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2021
One of the noblest characters in American literature gets a novel worthy of him.
Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as told from the perspective of a more resourceful and contemplative Jim than the one you remember.
This isn’t the first novel to reimagine Twain’s 1885 masterpiece, but the audacious and prolific Everett dives into the very heart of Twain’s epochal odyssey, shifting the central viewpoint from that of the unschooled, often credulous, but basically good-hearted Huck to the more enigmatic and heroic Jim, the Black slave with whom the boy escapes via raft on the Mississippi River. As in the original, the threat of Jim’s being sold “down the river” and separated from his wife and daughter compels him to run away while figuring out what to do next. He's soon joined by Huck, who has faked his own death to get away from an abusive father, ramping up Jim’s panic. “Huck was supposedly murdered and I’d just run away,” Jim thinks. “Who did I think they would suspect of the heinous crime?” That Jim can, as he puts it, “[do] the math” on his predicament suggests how different Everett’s version is from Twain’s. First and foremost, there's the matter of the Black dialect Twain used to depict the speech of Jim and other Black characters—which, for many contemporary readers, hinders their enjoyment of his novel. In Everett’s telling, the dialect is a put-on, a manner of concealment, and a tactic for survival. “White folks expect us to sound a certain way and it can only help if we don’t disappoint them,” Jim explains. He also discloses that, in violation of custom and law, he learned to read the books in Judge Thatcher’s library, including Voltaire and John Locke, both of whom, in dreams and delirium, Jim finds himself debating about human rights and his own humanity. With and without Huck, Jim undergoes dangerous tribulations and hairbreadth escapes in an antebellum wilderness that’s much grimmer and bloodier than Twain’s. There’s also a revelation toward the end that, however stunning to devoted readers of the original, makes perfect sense.
One of the noblest characters in American literature gets a novel worthy of him.Pub Date: March 19, 2024
ISBN: 9780385550369
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2024
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of...
Hoover’s (November 9, 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.
At first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers; Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. Lily swears she’ll never end up in another abusive home, but when Ryle starts to show all the same warning signs that her mother ignored, Lily learns just how hard it is to say goodbye. When Ryle is not in the throes of a jealous rage, his redeeming qualities return, and Lily can justify his behavior: “I think we needed what happened on the stairwell to happen so that I would know his past and we’d be able to work on it together,” she tells herself. Lily marries Ryle hoping the good will outweigh the bad, and the mother-daughter dynamics evolve beautifully as Lily reflects on her childhood with fresh eyes. Diary entries fancifully addressed to TV host Ellen DeGeneres serve as flashbacks to Lily’s teenage years, when she met her first love, Atlas Corrigan, a homeless boy she found squatting in a neighbor’s house. When Atlas turns up in Boston, now a successful chef, he begs Lily to leave Ryle. Despite the better option right in front of her, an unexpected complication forces Lily to cut ties with Atlas, confront Ryle, and try to end the cycle of abuse before it’s too late. The relationships are portrayed with compassion and honesty, and the author’s note at the end that explains Hoover’s personal connection to the subject matter is a must-read.
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of the survivors.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1036-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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