That sense of humor that can save a person in real life makes this an extremely fun read.
A highly entertaining debut from Sweeney, host of The Biggest Loser and star of Days of Our Lives for 20 years.
Sweeney's insider knowledge adds authenticity to this laugh-out-loud story of working and romancing in Los Angeles. Her badass heroine, Sophie Atwater, has worked her way up the ranks of a PR company representing Hollywood celebrities. She has a great sense of humor, and the narrative voice is so real you might think you were reading text messages from a friend you’ve shared stories and laughs with over the years. Sophie, at 31, is still single, although she has a steady boyfriend and she knows her parents worry about her single status. She is not sure if she wants marriage or not. Jacob is an investment banker and travels in a different world that is not all that interesting to Sophie, but she feels comfortable with him and really does love him. Then she gets the prize assignment at work: representing a hot new movie star, Billy Fox, who never fails to let her know how attractive he finds her. Red-carpet events with Billy overlap with Jacob’s cancer research fundraising events, and the tension builds. A beautiful and narcissistic co-worker at the PR company, who is not above creating problems for anyone and everyone at work, is envious and connives to create a particularly serious problem for Sophie, but in the end, it all works out as it should. After losing the boyfriend and the job for a period of confused self-examination, Sophie makes a triumphant comeback. What makes the book remarkable is not so much the plot, which is mostly predictable, but Sophie’s reactions to what happens. You just have to love this girl.
That sense of humor that can save a person in real life makes this an extremely fun read.Pub Date: May 14, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4013-1104-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Pevear's informative introduction and numerous helpful explanatory notes help make this the essential Anna Karenina.
The husband-and-wife team who have given us refreshing English versions of Dostoevsky, Gogol, and Chekhov now present their lucid translation of Tolstoy's panoramic tale of adultery and society: a masterwork that may well be the greatest realistic novel ever written. It's a beautifully structured fiction, which contrasts the aristocratic world of two prominent families with the ideal utopian one dreamed by earnest Konstantin Levin (a virtual self-portrait). The characters of the enchanting Anna (a descendant of Flaubert's Emma Bovary and Fontane's Effi Briest, and forerunner of countless later literary heroines), the lover (Vronsky) who proves worthy of her indiscretion, her bloodless husband Karenin and ingenuous epicurean brother Stiva, among many others, are quite literally unforgettable. Perhaps the greatest virtue of this splendid translation is the skill with which it distinguishes the accents of Anna's romantic egoism from the spare narrative clarity with which a vast spectrum of Russian life is vividly portrayed.
Pevear's informative introduction and numerous helpful explanatory notes help make this the essential Anna Karenina.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-670-89478-8
Page Count: 864
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2001
PERSPECTIVES
Hannah, after eight paperbacks, abandons her successful time-travelers for a hardcover life of kitchen-sink romance. Everyone must have got the Olympic Peninsula memo for this spring because, as of this reading, authors Hannah, Nora Roberts, and JoAnn Ross have all placed their newest romances in or near the Quinault rain forest. Here, 40ish Annie Colwater, returns to Washington State after her husband, high-powered Los Angeles lawyer Blake, tells her he’s found another (younger) woman and wants a divorce. Although a Stanford graduate, Annie has known only a life of perfect wifedom: matching Blake’s ties to his suits and cooking meals from Gourmet magazine. What is she to do with her shattered life? Well, she returns to dad’s house in the small town of Mystic, cuts off all her hair (for a different look), and goes to work as a nanny for lawman Nick Delacroix, whose wife has committed suicide, whose young daughter Izzy refuses to speak, and who himself has descended into despair and alcoholism. Annie spruces up Nick’s home on Mystic Lake and sends “Izzy-bear” back into speech mode. And, after Nick begins attending AA meetings, she and he become lovers. Still, when Annie learns that she’s pregnant not with Nick’s but with Blake’s child, she heads back to her empty life in the Malibu Colony. The baby arrives prematurely, and mean-spirited Blake doesn’t even stick around to support his wife. At this point, it’s perfectly clear to Annie—and the reader—that she’s justified in taking her newborn daughter and driving back north. Hannah’s characters indulge in so many stages of the weeps, from glassy eyes to flat-out sobs, that tear ducts are almost bound to stay dry. (First printing of 100,000; first serial to Good Housekeeping; Literary Guild/Doubleday book club selections)
Pub Date: March 31, 1999
ISBN: 0-609-60249-7
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1999
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