If you like basking in over-the-top banter and don’t roll your eyes at perfectly neat endings, you’ll have a fun afternoon...
Think you’d do anything for the chance to be supermodel pretty? Well, it gets messy.
In Clark’s (Parched, 2014, etc.) first adult novel, self-esteem issues compel a group of friends to renounce rational decision-making for a chance to take their looks from average to unforgettable. Evie Selby, a copywriter at a women’s magazine, is having a hard time accepting the culture of online dating. Her roommate, Krista Kumar, dropped out of law school to start an acting career, but it’s going nowhere. And their good friend Willow, a troubled photographer and daughter of a famous director, doesn’t understand what her puppy-dog boyfriend, Mark, sees in her. They’re all in bad places. If only they were prettier, right? They’d have more confidence, get more opportunities. When a shot at this lands magically in their laps, all three can’t help but grasp at the possibilities that come with trying a drop of the Pretty. Warning: now’s the time to suspend your disbelief. One drop of the Pretty potion gets them a week of long-legged, doe-eyed bliss. So, they make (terrible) excuses for the whereabouts of their real selves and walk through the doors that suddenly begin to open for them. Doors that lead to movie roles and dates with the superflirtatious novelist Velma Wolff. You'll find yourself getting sucked in as things descend into chaos, but there really isn’t a solid foundation to this story. An opportunity to build up a back story for the Pretty comes and goes in one underwhelming chapter. And while these characters promote liberating views on female sexuality, issues are either dulled by self-congratulating rants or resolved in fairy tale–esque fashion. One redeeming quality is that becoming Pretty does not involve a Cinderella-like transformation—it takes the adage “beauty is pain” to a new level.
If you like basking in over-the-top banter and don’t roll your eyes at perfectly neat endings, you’ll have a fun afternoon on the beach with this one.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1959-0
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Emily Bestler/Atria
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
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
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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