An engaging though repetitive story of a couple that come to accept their faults and in the process find their future.
A decade after their messy breakup in 1989, two people find themselves in bed together the morning of New Year’s Eve, wearing rings and with no recollection of what happened the night before.
Ezra Jones and Frankie Harriman become best friends during their sophomore year at college. A once-in-a-generation piano prodigy as a child, Frankie stopped playing at 17, determined to finally control her own life. She re-creates herself at Middleton University in Massachusetts, keeping her talent a complete secret. Ezra is an anxiety-ridden but kind boy on a full merit scholarship whose mother is fighting ovarian cancer. By junior year, Ezra and Frankie are in love and inseparable. But in the hours before graduation, they have a knock-down fight, break up, and subsequently steer clear of each other for a decade. Then a pair of their college friends—April, now teaching literature at Middleton, and Connor, now an assistant hockey coach on campus—decide to get married in a "Party Like It’s 1999"–themed wedding on the eve of the new millennium. Frankie is now a high-flying music manager; Ezra is wealthy after having sold a gaming model to Yahoo, and he's plotting the grandest gesture he can think of: He's going to propose to his girlfriend, Mimi, with his grandmother’s 2-carat diamond ring once the new century begins. The story follows the day after the night before, and Ezra and Frankie’s quest to retrace their steps and figure out if they are actually married. Author Scotch has written a book that moves in minutes rather than days and is told through memories as the pair walk around campus remembering episodes from their past—both from 10 years earlier and the night before. Many, many pages are spent hashing (and rehashing) the demons unearthed at each building they come to that have made them into the messy, complicated adults that they currently are.
An engaging though repetitive story of a couple that come to accept their faults and in the process find their future.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-54653-6
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Haphazard and undemanding.
A sports agent’s first official client is the man she dumped years ago in college.
After two years of hard work as an underling, Nora Mackenzie is finally being promoted to full-time sports agent. She’s worked hard, kept quiet, and allowed men in the office to call her Mac—a nickname she hates—all to show she’s a team player and “one of the guys.” Unfortunately, her boss instructs her to sign Derek Pender, a football player coming off an injury, who happens to be the man she heartlessly dumped in their senior year of college. Derek signs with her for revenge, seeing it as his opportunity to pay Nora back for callously breaking his heart eight years earlier. He insists she be at his beck and call: answering his emails, running his errands, cooking dinner for his dates. He also refuses to let her explain why she broke up with him without warning or explanation. Nora feels she has no choice but to acquiesce to Derek’s humiliating demands, since she’s worked too hard to let him ruin her dream job. She hopes he’ll thaw and they might become friends, but Derek’s bad behavior is designed to hide the fact that he’s still in love with her. Nora’s characterization is uneven, veering between anger at how she’s treated in the male-dominated field to immature bickering and bantering with Derek. Although Adams likely meant for Derek and Nora’s interactions to have an enemies-to-lovers vibe, the characters instead seem juvenile and stuck in the past. The novel is fueled by a string of tropes—second chance romance! married in Vegas! only one bed!—each randomly deployed to keep the book going despite thin characterization and wan plotting.
Haphazard and undemanding.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9780593723678
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dell
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
The sequel to It Ends With Us (2016) shows the aftermath of domestic violence through the eyes of a single mother.
Lily Bloom is still running a flower shop; her abusive ex-husband, Ryle Kincaid, is still a surgeon. But now they’re co-parenting a daughter, Emerson, who's almost a year old. Lily won’t send Emerson to her father’s house overnight until she’s old enough to talk—“So she can tell me if something happens”—but she doesn’t want to fight for full custody lest it become an expensive legal drama or, worse, a physical fight. When Lily runs into Atlas Corrigan, a childhood friend who also came from an abusive family, she hopes their friendship can blossom into love. (For new readers, their history unfolds in heartfelt diary entries that Lily addresses to Finding Nemo star Ellen DeGeneres as she considers how Atlas was a calming presence during her turbulent childhood.) Atlas, who is single and running a restaurant, feels the same way. But even though she’s divorced, Lily isn’t exactly free. Behind Ryle’s veneer of civility are his jealousy and resentment. Lily has to plan her dates carefully to avoid a confrontation. Meanwhile, Atlas’ mother returns with shocking news. In between, Lily and Atlas steal away for romantic moments that are even sweeter for their authenticity as Lily struggles with child care, breastfeeding, and running a business while trying to find time for herself.
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-668-00122-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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