A wacky ode to the resting bitch face.
When a telemarketer is fired because of her face, she and two colleagues embark on a harebrained quest to take down their boss in this comedic debut.
Vanessa Blair never thought there was anything particularly wrong with her face. Though she made the occasional eye roll or grimace about yet another employer-mandated team-building exercise, Nessa certainly never thought her “resting bitch face” would warrant her getting sacked from a telemarketing gig at Directis. Then Xavier Adams, her smarmy, perpetually barefoot boss, terminated her employment on account of her face and “dark soul,” leaving Nessa with a measly three days’ pay and sketchy severance agreement. When her co-workers Jane Delaney and Trisha Lam have similar experiences with Xavier, the three women begin to ruminate on their time at Directis. What kind of work environment hands out Underperforming Employee of the Week certificates? After a drunken night of bashing Xavier, Nessa finds herself enmeshed in a scheme with Jane and Trisha to destroy their boss and uncover whatever fishy business is keeping Directis afloat. Hijinks ensue with a revenge plot consisting of glitter-bombing the office AC unit, stealing Xavier’s hairless cat, and the formation of the Bridge Brigade, an espionage unit comprising Nessa’s mom and the neighborhood bridge ladies. Even Carter Beckett, the hot tattooed unemployment officer in charge of Nessa’s case, can tell that Directis is keeping secrets. Can Nessa and her friends prove that Directis is more than just a crappy job before Xavier ruins their career chances? Reminiscent of The Office and 9 to 5, Ryan’s debut is a slapstick blend of comedy and heart, with plenty of laugh-out-loud moments and strong female heroines. It’s a wonder that Nessa and her co-workers stayed at Directis as long as they did—Xavier Adams is Michael Scott meets Miranda Priestly, “body slamming the English language” with phrases like “tweam” and forcing employees to play musical chairs dressed as mermaids. Readers will want to see Xavier get his due and will be grateful the women stick around long enough to show him who’s boss.
A wacky ode to the resting bitch face.Pub Date: Jan. 17, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-72825-335-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Sourcebooks Casablanca
Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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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