Skillfully imagined, bittersweet portrait of marriage and sacrifice.
The inner (and outer) life of a grieving suburban mom is thrown into turmoil when she becomes attracted to a delicious young neighbor.
Two years after the tragic loss of her baby son, 35-year-old Elayna Leopold has gotten used to numbly going through the motions of life. A part-time poetry editor married to a mostly absent workaholic lawyer, she has been focusing all her energy on raising her young daughter Hazel. This all changes one early spring day after a chance meeting in her leafy New Jersey neighborhood with neighbor Kevin, an artist in his early 20s. She is instantly as captivated by him as he is by her; the two indulge in a heart-fluttering will-they-or-won’t-they flirtation that reignites her dormant sensuality. While never denying that she still loves her husband Paul, Elayna grows more and more smitten with Kevin, raising questions concerning the nature of marriage, the road not taken and whether the younger man is something of a substitute for the boy she lost. During this steamy season, Elayna’s fashion photographer father Devon takes a renewed interest in his granddaughter, putting Hazel in a fashion show and introducing her to his sophisticated Manhattan world. The two bond quickly, causing Elayna to wonder whether her dad’s worldly ways will negatively impact her sensitive seven-year-old. Her doubts pass quickly, and, in her self-absorbed state, Elayna starts to take more risks, culminating in a selfish decision that has far-reaching consequences for her family. Bravely tackling the complexity of sexual life, Hanauer (The Bitch in the House, 2003, etc.) allows Elayna’s ripe first-person musings to occasionally veer close to parody. But ultimately the reader is left feeling connected to a complicated woman who, after going hungry for too long, decides to taste too much.
Skillfully imagined, bittersweet portrait of marriage and sacrifice.Pub Date: June 6, 2006
ISBN: 0-7432-7734-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2006
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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