No surprise that negotiations for a television series are already under way; think Sex and the City in black.
On the heels of her memoir (What Remains, 2005) about the death of her husband, who happened to be Jackie Kennedy Onassis’ nephew, Real Housewives of New York regular Radziwill returns with a glib, comic, probably autobiographical novel about a young Manhattan widow looking for love in all the wrong places.
Thirty-something journalist Claire’s domineering, much older husband, Charlie, a famous author and sexology expert, is walking down Madison Avenue after an adulterous assignation when a fake Giacometti statue falls off a crane and kills him. Although the nine-year marriage lacked passion, Claire finds herself at sea. Not that she’s anyone’s average widow; she lives in a gorgeous apartment and is gorgeous herself. Charlie has left an unfinished manuscript about a movie star named Jack Huxley, and his agent wants Claire to complete it. Her predictably gay friend, Ethan, sends her to a psychic, who warns her she will not find love for a year. Her best friend, Sasha, who is also an alcoholic and as shallow as a leaky wading pool, sends her to a “botanomanist,” who tells Claire pretty much the same thing. Neither of Claire’s two therapists is optimistic, either. After six months of widowhood, Claire is anxious to “get laid,” so she goes on three failed dates, one with a successful journalist, one with a billionaire and, finally, one with a hockey star. She meets and flirts with Jack at the opening of one of his films but gets drunk and ends up sleeping with the co-star (think Bradley Cooper instead of George Clooney, poor girl). Eventually, she and narcissist Jack do connect and begin an affair of sorts; it is magic when they are together, but they are together only when he calls, which is not often. Will she grow out of Jack and into someone better? This may be a grief and recovery story for the privileged, but sharp-fanged Radziwill can be pretty funny as she mocks Claire’s friends and family.
No surprise that negotiations for a television series are already under way; think Sex and the City in black.Pub Date: Feb. 11, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9884-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Jan. 29, 2014
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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