Miller (Brand New Human Being, 2012) is refreshing in her approach to abortion, but too many coincidences and parallels in...
This earnest domestic drama set on Cape Cod covers all three bases of family relationships—siblings, spouses, parents and children—as well as the left field of uncle and nieces.
When he finds himself jobless, homeless, and single, 42-year-old Vance comes to stay in the childhood home where his twin brother, Craig, still lives with his second wife, Gina, their two young children, and Craig’s 17-year-old daughter from his first marriage, Amanda. Vance, the seemingly more sensitive if less responsible brother, envies and resents straight-arrow Craig’s relative success, but no one in this family is happy or exactly likable, and each harbors a store of secrets, guilt, moral dilemmas, and resentments. More than $250,000 in debt, builder Craig is desperately counting on two not-quite-solid projects to bail himself out. He also still blames himself for the death of Amanda’s mother in a diving accident 11 years ago. Gina, a Harvard grad with design aspirations, is dissatisfied merely running a boutique. Frustrated in her marriage to uncommunicative Craig, she's tempted into flirtation with the twins’ longtime friend Dov, who plans to have Craig build his new restaurant. The biggest secret of all, and the one that affects everyone eventually, is held by Amanda. Already accepted to Dartmouth (natch, in this novel full of Ivy Leaguers and rich-people problems), she was caught smoking pot at school after her boyfriend, incidentally Dov’s son, dumped her; instead of being expelled, she was sent to Chile, where she met a guy and got “in trouble.” She’s desperate not to be pregnant, but her father is against abortion for reasons from his youth that he is not sharing. Meanwhile, Vance runs into his old high school girlfriend, coincidentally the riding teacher of his poignantly underappreciated 6-year-old niece, Helen, and the guilty secret that has haunted him since their breakup surfaces.
Miller (Brand New Human Being, 2012) is refreshing in her approach to abortion, but too many coincidences and parallels in plot and character connections weaken the novel.Pub Date: Feb. 21, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-547-73441-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
A tour de force.
In 1974, a troubled Vietnam vet inherits a house from a fallen comrade and moves his family to Alaska.
After years as a prisoner of war, Ernt Allbright returned home to his wife, Cora, and daughter, Leni, a violent, difficult, restless man. The family moved so frequently that 13-year-old Leni went to five schools in four years. But when they move to Alaska, still very wild and sparsely populated, Ernt finds a landscape as raw as he is. As Leni soon realizes, “Everyone up here had two stories: the life before and the life now. If you wanted to pray to a weirdo god or live in a school bus or marry a goose, no one in Alaska was going to say crap to you.” There are many great things about this book—one of them is its constant stream of memorably formulated insights about Alaska. Another key example is delivered by Large Marge, a former prosecutor in Washington, D.C., who now runs the general store for the community of around 30 brave souls who live in Kaneq year-round. As she cautions the Allbrights, “Alaska herself can be Sleeping Beauty one minute and a bitch with a sawed-off shotgun the next. There’s a saying: Up here you can make one mistake. The second one will kill you.” Hannah’s (The Nightingale, 2015, etc.) follow-up to her series of blockbuster bestsellers will thrill her fans with its combination of Greek tragedy, Romeo and Juliet–like coming-of-age story, and domestic potboiler. She re-creates in magical detail the lives of Alaska's homesteaders in both of the state's seasons (they really only have two) and is just as specific and authentic in her depiction of the spiritual wounds of post-Vietnam America.
A tour de force.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-312-57723-0
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2017
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.
Eleven years ago, he broke her heart. But he doesn’t know why she never forgave him.
Toggling between past and present, two love stories unfold simultaneously. In the first, Macy Sorensen meets and falls in love with the boy next door, Elliot Petropoulos, in the closet of her dad’s vacation home, where they hide out to discuss their favorite books. In the second, Macy is working as a doctor and engaged to a single father, and she hasn’t spoken to Elliot since their breakup. But a chance encounter forces her to confront the truth: what happened to make Macy stop speaking to Elliot? Ultimately, they’re separated not by time or physical remoteness but by emotional distance—Elliot and Macy always kept their relationship casual because they went to different schools. And as a teen, Macy has more to worry about than which girl Elliot is taking to the prom. After losing her mother at a young age, Macy is navigating her teenage years without a female role model, relying on the time-stamped notes her mother left in her father’s care for guidance. In the present day, Macy’s father is dead as well. She throws herself into her work and rarely comes up for air, not even to plan her upcoming wedding. Since Macy is still living with her fiance while grappling with her feelings for Elliot, the flashbacks offer steamy moments, tender revelations, and sweetly awkward confessions while Macy makes peace with her past and decides her future.
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2801-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
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