A funny and occasionally touching novel about rebuilding your life after a crisis.
A woman and her former friend run rival support groups in Levin’s comic novel.
Hunter Fitzgerald suffers one indignity after the next. First, she loses her job when the fitness center she manages shuts down. Then her husband, Peter, leaves her for her newly sober friend, Angelica, a longtime partier and sponge whose memoir has just hit the bestseller list. Peter tries to sell their house out from under her just as Hunter realizes he’s destroyed her credit by maxing out credit cards in her name. Finally, while working at her new job at a Starbucks, Hunter learns that Angelica has trashed her in the memoir, accusing Hunter of allowing Angelica to get raped while they were out drinking one night. Hunter’s luck finally changes when, during an oppressively foggy day at a Bay Area flea market, she acquires a “talking stick” from a mysterious woman in an airstream trailer. “It was given to me by a woman I knew in an artists’ colony in New Mexico,” the woman tells her. “It’s been passed down from mother to daughter and used in female-only groups. Sometimes to settle a dispute among the women.” Upon receiving the stick, Hunter knows immediately what she needs to do: form a for-profit support group for women focusing on physical and emotional health. The first meeting, held at Hunter’s now for-sale house, attracts a not-quite-promising group of three, including Penelope, an elderly hypochondriac obsessed with dying; Dannika, a young woman who can’t get into college and is still mourning her dead mother; and Alicia, an OB-GYN who refuses to date out of concern for her teenage daughter. Meanwhile, Peter—who also retains access to the house—allows Angelica to use it to start her own, larger support group, the Fourteenth Step, in the room next to Hunter’s group. Despite her reservations, Hunter sticks it out with her sad trio, and the four of them begin to help one another get past the barriers that have been keeping them from happiness. But can they help Hunter save her house from Angelica’s growing army of supportees?
Levin writes with tenderness and humor, capturing the particular insecurities of each character. Here, Dannika hopes that friendships will develop between the members of the group, even as she frets about being judged by the other women: “Penelope’s house was a little closer to Dannika’s, but it was even swankier than Hunter’s, which made her feel embarrassed about her own place, with its old, cat-and-dust-covered furniture. True, the talking-stick women probably wouldn’t visit her often. Or ever.” Hunter, a California Republican and proud atheist who collects potentially valuable Barbies that she finds at flea markets, is a memorable and utterly believable character. It’s a pleasure to see her heart softened by the equally specific members of her support group. The book is perhaps longer than it needs to be at nearly 400 pages, but readers will enjoy the extra time they get to spend with these characters.
A funny and occasionally touching novel about rebuilding your life after a crisis.Pub Date: April 23, 2024
ISBN: 9781648210310
Page Count: 408
Publisher: Arcade
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.
After being released from prison, a young woman tries to reconnect with her 5-year-old daughter despite having killed the girl’s father.
Kenna didn’t even know she was pregnant until after she was sent to prison for murdering her boyfriend, Scotty. When her baby girl, Diem, was born, she was forced to give custody to Scotty’s parents. Now that she’s been released, Kenna is intent on getting to know her daughter, but Scotty’s parents won’t give her a chance to tell them what really happened the night their son died. Instead, they file a restraining order preventing Kenna from so much as introducing herself to Diem. Handsome, self-assured Ledger, who was Scotty’s best friend, is another key adult in Diem’s life. He’s helping her grandparents raise her, and he too blames Kenna for Scotty’s death. Even so, there’s something about her that haunts him. Kenna feels the pull, too, and seems to be seeking Ledger out despite his judgmental behavior. As Ledger gets to know Kenna and acknowledges his attraction to her, he begins to wonder if maybe he and Scotty’s parents have judged her unfairly. Even so, Ledger is afraid that if he surrenders to his feelings, Scotty’s parents will kick him out of Diem’s life. As Kenna and Ledger continue to mourn for Scotty, they also grieve the future they cannot have with each other. Told alternatively from Kenna’s and Ledger’s perspectives, the story explores the myriad ways in which snap judgments based on partial information can derail people’s lives. Built on a foundation of death and grief, this story has an undercurrent of sadness. As usual, however, the author has created compelling characters who are magnetic and sympathetic enough to pull readers in. In addition to grief, the novel also deftly explores complex issues such as guilt, self-doubt, redemption, and forgiveness.
With captivating dialogue, angst-y characters, and a couple of steamy sex scenes, Hoover has done it again.Pub Date: Jan. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5420-2560-7
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2021
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.
A year in the life of the No. 2 boarding school in America—up from No. 19 last year!
Rumors of Hilderbrand’s retirement were greatly exaggerated, it turns out, since not only has she not gone out to pasture, she’s started over in high school, with her daughter Shelby Cunningham as co-author. As their delicious new book opens, it’s Move-In Day at Tiffin Academy, and Head of School Audre Robinson is warmly welcoming the returning and new students to the New England campus, the latter group including a rare midstream addition to the junior class. Brainiac Charley Hicks is transferring from public school in Maryland to a spot that opened up when one of the school’s most beloved students died by suicide the preceding year. She will be joining a large, diverse cast of adult and teenage characters—queen bees, jealous second-stringers, boozehounds young and old, secret lesbians, people chasing the wrong people chasing other wrong people—all of them royally screwed when an app called Zip Zap appears and starts blasting everyone’s secrets all over campus. How the heck…? Meanwhile, it seems so unlikely that Tiffin has jumped up to the No. 2 spot in the boarding-school rankings that a high-profile magazine launches an investigation, and even the head is worried that there may have been payola involved. The school has a reputation for being more social than academic, and this quality gets an exciting new exclamation point when the resident millionaire bad boy opens a high-style secret speakeasy for select juniors in a forgotten basement. It’s called Priorities. Exactly. One problem: Cinnamon Peters’ mysterious suicide hangs over the book in an odd way, especially since the note she left for her closest male friend is not to be opened for another year—and isn’t. This is surely a setup for a sequel, but it’s a bit frustrating here, and bobs sort of shallowly along amid the general high spirits.
A boarding-school fantasia, with Hilderbrand’s signature upgrades to the cuisine and decor. Sign us up for next term.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9780316567855
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
SEEN & HEARD
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