A nearly nonexistent sense of humor unfortunately negates any vicarious pleasure to be got from either Bushnell’s better...
Rapacious social climber gets the rich husband and fame she’s always desired—and it’s far from enough.
This being the fifth from Bushnell (Sex and the City, 1996; Four Blondes, 2000, etc.), one expects generous lashings of fashion, sex, and New York City—and such expectations are more than rewarded. Stage center in this gaudy little bauble is Janey Wilcox, a morally challenged model at the upper end of the allowed age spectrum (early 30s) who’s managed to stay on top as one of the lithe, lingerie-clad Victoria’s Secret vixens. Sick of not-so-subtly trading sex with powerful Manhattan men for favors, invites, meals, and money, she decides that she needs to do what “friends” do (thinking of other people as anything but accessories and tools is somewhat of a stretch for Janey) and get a rich husband. The poor sucker is Selden Rose, a basically nice guy from Chicago who’s CEO of a successful cable movie channel. A quick romance ends in marriage and an Italian honeymoon that quickly has Janey throwing tantrums at being so far away from good shopping. Ensconced in their New York apartment, Janey quickly comes to realize that she could have married much better than Selden. Though she’s a past master of the New York scene and the neuroses and accoutrements of its more fabulous denizens, Bushnell runs into more than a few snags when she tries to rev this lumbering, chaotic novel forward. It’s all well and good to create a creature as devastatingly cold-hearted and childish as Janey just so we can stand back and watch the chaos ensue (à la Valley of the Dolls, too bluntly alluded to), but a lurching, frequently stalled plot gets in the way to an almost embarrassing degree.
A nearly nonexistent sense of humor unfortunately negates any vicarious pleasure to be got from either Bushnell’s better observations or Janey’s monstrous diva-tude.Pub Date: July 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-7868-6818-X
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.
Atwood goes back to Gilead.
The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), consistently regarded as a masterpiece of 20th-century literature, has gained new attention in recent years with the success of the Hulu series as well as fresh appreciation from readers who feel like this story has new relevance in America’s current political climate. Atwood herself has spoken about how news headlines have made her dystopian fiction seem eerily plausible, and it’s not difficult to imagine her wanting to revisit Gilead as the TV show has sped past where her narrative ended. Like the novel that preceded it, this sequel is presented as found documents—first-person accounts of life inside a misogynistic theocracy from three informants. There is Agnes Jemima, a girl who rejects the marriage her family arranges for her but still has faith in God and Gilead. There’s Daisy, who learns on her 16th birthday that her whole life has been a lie. And there's Aunt Lydia, the woman responsible for turning women into Handmaids. This approach gives readers insight into different aspects of life inside and outside Gilead, but it also leads to a book that sometimes feels overstuffed. The Handmaid’s Tale combined exquisite lyricism with a powerful sense of urgency, as if a thoughtful, perceptive woman was racing against time to give witness to her experience. That narrator hinted at more than she said; Atwood seemed to trust readers to fill in the gaps. This dynamic created an atmosphere of intimacy. However curious we might be about Gilead and the resistance operating outside that country, what we learn here is that what Atwood left unsaid in the first novel generated more horror and outrage than explicit detail can. And the more we get to know Agnes, Daisy, and Aunt Lydia, the less convincing they become. It’s hard, of course, to compete with a beloved classic, so maybe the best way to read this new book is to forget about The Handmaid’s Tale and enjoy it as an artful feminist thriller.
Suspenseful, full of incident, and not obviously necessary.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-385-54378-1
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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
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