Crane’s witty romantic comedy debut will be best appreciated by those raised on a steady diet of MTV.
Two 20-something New Yorkers squabble and flirt their way across the country.
A laid back, music-obsessed dreamer in the Nick Hornby mold, struggling indie-rock producer Brady Gilbert is reasonably sure, after losing his rent-controlled apartment in a breakup, that a girlfriend is the last thing he needs. Still, he is intrigued when he moves in next door to Heaven Albright. Lissome, quirky and frequently obnoxious, Heaven pops into Brady’s apartment unannounced, opens his mail and generally finds ways to both fascinate and annoy him. A former PR flack and woefully inept waitress, Heaven is tossed from the hipster Asian restaurant where she works after one of her jokes goes too far. With time on her hands, she cheerfully oversteps all of Brady’s boundaries and insists on accompanying her new neighbor on a trip to Los Angeles, where he intends to check out and sign a talented high-school rock band. In L.A., Heaven crosses paths with her ex, a smarmy A&R rep for a big record company interested in the same band as Brady. After Heaven spends the night with his rival, Brady cannot decide what is worse, losing his band, or losing Heaven. The not-quite couple then stop in Seattle, where Brady hopes to present his improbable but inspired entrepreneurial idea—Cinnamilk—to Starbucks mastermind Howard Schultz. Good intentions, combined with poor judgment, result in the two getting arrested outside a vigil commemorating the death of Kurt Cobain. With a title taken from a Nirvana song and Brady’s fixation with obscure bands and even more obscure snack foods, Crane’s basic boy-meets-girl story is at times a bit too enamored of its own caffeine-fueled pop-culture cred.
Crane’s witty romantic comedy debut will be best appreciated by those raised on a steady diet of MTV.Pub Date: May 12, 2006
ISBN: 0-446-69572-6
Page Count: 336
Publisher: 5 Spot/Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2006
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
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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