Mothers of 18-year-olds may smile in recognition occasionally, but this is really weak.
Second novel from the author of Ready to Fall (2000), this time a low-wattage domestic comedy about a woman adjusting to her first-born’s freshman year in college.
Boston suburbanite March Monroe dropped out of college over 20 years ago to follow her then boyfriend/now husband Jeff to grad school, and she’s led a comfortable domestic life ever since, running typical women’s businesses (party planner, exercise trainer, life coach) and raising Olivia and Jackson. Now that Olivia is starting her freshman year at BU, March follows Jeff’s suggestion and enrolls at the local community college as a returning student. As part of her college curriculum, March takes on an internship at a local radio station. Who should March run into her first day at WQBM but Olivia, also applying for an internship. Olivia acts less than thrilled to see Mom, especially since March has neglected to mention that she’s back in school. Many readers, women in particular, will find March’s narration both annoyingly whiny and self-congratulatory. For all her good-natured complaining, her life is pretty TV-sitcom-perfect. Sure there are annoyances: The family pets get sick; Jackson eats junk food; Jeff doesn’t listen as well as he could, though better than most (plus he buys groceries and gives neck rubs). As for Olivia, there are no lurking problems with sex, drinking, or even identity crises—unless you count a wisdom tooth inflammation. That she’s aloof from, and easily embarrassed by, March doesn’t make for great drama. The plot, such as it is, centers on the mother-daughter radio show March and Olivia end up hosting for a good-looking radio producer with whom March carries on a very mild and brief flirtation. Each chapter begins with a cutesy multiple-choice quiz joke on mothers: hence the title.
Mothers of 18-year-olds may smile in recognition occasionally, but this is really weak.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-670-03330-8
Page Count: 7
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2004
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
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her...
Another middle-aged mom in a muddle.
After years of false starts and big hopes, Elizabeth’s ruggedly handsome husband Jack, a former football star, just landed a spot as a sportscaster on national news. He still loves her, even though much younger women are giving him come-hither looks. Heck, he doesn’t want to betray the love of his life after she helped him kick drugs and stuck by him even when he was a struggling has-been. And won’t it seem hypocritical if he fools around with his sexy assistant while he does in-depth reporting on a rape case involving a famous basketball center? Well, he fools around anyway. Elizabeth, nicknamed Birdie, knows nothing of this, but she withdraws from Jack when her hard-drinking, salt-of-the-earth father has a stroke and dies. Now no one will call her “sugar beet” ever again. Time to return home to Tennessee and contend with Anita, the sort-of-evil stepmother so trashy she wears pink puffy slippers all day long. Naturally, it turns out that Anita actually has a heart of gold and knows a few things about Birdie’s dead mother that were hushed up for years. Mom was an artist, just like Birdie, and an old scandal comes to light as Anita unrolls a vibrant canvas that portrays her secret lover. Perhaps, Birdie muses, her mother died of heartbreak, never having followed her true love or developed her talent. Has she, too, compromised everything she holds dear? Hoping to find out, Birdie joins a support group that promises to reconnect confused women with their passion. She and Jack separate, prompting a how-dare-you fit from their grown daughters. Will Birdie fly her empty nest? Will she go back to college for a degree in art? Will her brooding watercolors ever sell?
Soft-focus story moves right along with few surprises. This time around, Hannah avoids the soap-opera complications of her previous tales (Summer Island, 2001, etc.).Pub Date: July 1, 2002
ISBN: 0-345-45071-X
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2002
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