Fiercely funny, with a slice-and-dice take on image-obsessed popular culture: a standout in the crowded chick-lit field.
Forget compassion: this ugly duckling gets even in Canadian Friedman’s US debut.
Before: Allison Penny is too plump for her sweatpants, too grumpy to be loved, and too poor to do a thing about it. Virginie, her pretty, petite roommate, thinks nothing of blowing cigarette smoke in her face and letting goateed, arty, oversexed boyfriends parade around their shared apartment nearly naked; homely Allison is, above all, safe. Musing morosely upon the perfidy of a world where good visuals trump all, our heroine, who is at least blessed with a beautiful voice, knows that she’s not likely to make it big as a singer when sexy, no-talent squawkers like Madonna and Britney Spears rule the airwaves. Allison, a compulsive people-pleaser from childhood (“who would like to eat the delicious portions of my lunch today?”), is just plain fed-up with being lonely and unwanted. Even her secret crush on nerdy Nathan, the bespectacled movie buff who waters the plants at the office building she cleans for $7 an hour, is going nowhere. After: a mysterious transformation takes place while she sleeps, and Allison is suddenly, utterly gorgeous, blond-bosomy-leggy-sexy gorgeous. Hunky construction workers fall on their knees to service her sexually, and the rest of the (male) world seems to be standing in line to do the same. No longer a nobody, noticed by men and—oh, tawdry joy!—envied by women, she invents a past to fit the face and her new opportunities (ironically, her singing talent vanished with her plain-Jane exterior). But being beautiful makes fairy-tale fulfillment ridiculously easy. Should she become a model? A movie star? Decisions, decisions. But, first, Allison has some scores to settle and things to find out. With the eager assistance of her adoptive mother, a self-involved, gold-digging alcoholic who neglected her, Allison goes in search of the woman who gave her away.
Fiercely funny, with a slice-and-dice take on image-obsessed popular culture: a standout in the crowded chick-lit field.Pub Date: June 22, 2004
ISBN: 1-4000-5106-1
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Three Rivers/Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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
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
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