by Barbara Mullen ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 1, 2012
A disturbingly believable account of a marriage gone bad.
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Mullen’s novel tells the disturbing account of a woman trapped in an abusive marriage.
Katie O’Connell seems to have the perfect life upon marrying Jeff, a wealthy, charming man who whisks her off to Rhode Island. But she soon feels as though she married two people: loving Jeff, who’s at ease when they sail on their yacht, and the dark, angry Jeff on land, who thrusts his four children from a previous marriage onto Katie, thanking her with only biting criticism. Not long into marriage, Katie finds herself “in a constant state of readiness, one foot perpetually raised and prepared for the quick change of direction from one version of him to the other.” Jeff’s dark moods begin to overshadow their marriage, and sides of him she didn’t know existed begin to surface. Though he had claimed to be a staunch feminist when they were dating, he suddenly decides that Katie’s career as a newspaper columnist is no longer acceptable; she must raise his children. He asserts control over their finances and blames Katie for everything, including his mood swings and angst. As the marriage descends into a tense, dangerous place, Katie finds herself losing her conviction and choosing to believe Jeff’s apologies and promises. A cycle ensues: Jeff crosses lines of abuse that even forgiving Katie cannot tolerate, though she finds herself reconciling again as Jeff insists he’ll get help. But when Katie’s willingness to work with her troubled husband is put to the ultimate test, her resilience may not be enough. Told with a gentle touch, Katie’s story draws the reader into the desperate mind of a woman who needs to believe in her marriage. It’s every woman’s nightmare, and Katie’s determination makes her both a victim and a heroine; either way, she’s hugely sympathetic. The details of her turbulent marriage make for a gripping, heart-rending experience, which will stay with readers long after the story ends.
A disturbingly believable account of a marriage gone bad.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-0615655727
Page Count: 244
Publisher: Tenacity Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Hanya Yanagihara ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 10, 2015
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
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Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 2004
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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