By turns self-congratulatory and moralistic: a lowbrow aim at smart women.
Preachy, glum debut tale of mid-40s wife and mother in the doldrums of suburban New Jersey.
Deriding the 1950s housewifery of her pampered mother, whose panacea for her Long Island depression was to have another child, middle-aged daughter Julie Berman acts out boldly in order not to behave in the same passive, nonconfrontational way in her own household with husband Eric and two almost grown children. On a visit to Palm Beach to visit her breezy, ailing parents, Julie learns that her 74-year-old mother has pancreatic cancer and has no intention of seeking treatment: “She doesn’t want any pain,” her bland father assures Julie. Then, returning home, Julie is informed that daughter Alexis, attending college upstate, wants to join the junior-year abroad program in order to be with her new love interest, young married professor Russell, and Lexie, by the way, is still a virgin. Sixteen-year-old son Jake, on the other hand, has just met a girl named Beth and lost his own virginity, in the bedroom of their home, while Julie’s supervisor at the New Jersey Suburban Sentinel is attractive, witty, single and coming on to her. Julie’s husband (a “Neanderthal”) has rather more old world ideas of protecting Lexie’s honor (Mafia style), but the parents cook up a scheme to invite charming Russell to a rollicking seder, featuring many colorful and irrepressible relatives. Russell comes, is duly insulted, balks and backs out, then writes a best-selling novel about his love for young Lexie. Borden’s prose, however, does not move this swiftly; instead, it tends to dwell and mope, unlike sleeker similar plotting by Claire Cook (Must Love Dogs, 2002: in both novels, the somewhat estranged, long-time married parents always end up happily in bed at the end). Here, the author is clearly groping for the same audience.
By turns self-congratulatory and moralistic: a lowbrow aim at smart women.Pub Date: July 5, 2005
ISBN: 1-4000-8221-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Shaye Areheart/Harmony
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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