Readers will be casting their votes for Rick—and not the guy who got away.
A harried events planner pines for the high-school heartthrob who got away, but is the feeling mutual?
Erin Edwards works for a world-class luxury resort in Virginia, coordinating lavish weddings, bar mitzvahs and birthday parties, like the Sweet 16 bash the hotel is hosting for Roxanne, the world’s brattiest teenager. Fielding Roxanne’s outrageous requests (helicopters, horses in the water park, a flock of eagles), Erin recalls her own much less entitled teenage years, overshadowed by her passion for Nate, her first lover. Although she went on to other loves and is the single mother of a daughter, she’s never found Nate’s equal in any man. Rick, her daughter’s best friend’s father, a prominent Washington, D.C., lawyer, has proposed and is waiting for an answer. There’s nothing wrong with Rick, except that he’s not...Nate. The book alternates between the mid ’80s, as the courtship of Nate and Erin charts its rocky course, and the present. Although '80s Erin can’t tamp down her longing for Nate, she still chafes at the fact that they never have a real date—instead they hang out with his Animal House–eligible contingent of friends. Nate is Romeo without the flowery speeches or depth. In the present, Roxanne refuses to believe that her ex-boyfriend can’t be somehow forced to attend her party. Witnessing Roxanne’s self-delusion leads Erin to ponder if Nate shares her nostalgia for their past. Convinced he moved away long ago, she can’t resist revisiting Nate’s former home. But as she passes the house, who should appear but Nate, slightly more grizzled. They fall back into bed without so much as a word, but then she finds his wedding ring. Should she have just let sleeping Nates lie? Although there are some trenchant social observations here, Erin’s ever-churning ruminations and regrets begin to pall. Harbison makes a vivid case for Nate’s sexual prowess but fails to illustrate any other traits that would qualify him for soul-mate-hood.
Readers will be casting their votes for Rick—and not the guy who got away.Pub Date: July 19, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-312-59910-2
Page Count: 368
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 6, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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