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
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
BOOK TO SCREEN
Catch-22 is also concerned with some of war's horrors and atrocities, and it is at times painfully grim.
Catch-22 is an unusual, wildly inventive comic novel about World War II, and its publishers are planning considerable publicity for it.
Set on the tiny island of Pianosa in the Mediterranean Sea, the novel is devoted to a long series of impossible, illogical adventures engaged in by the members of the 256th bombing squadron, an unlikely combat group whose fanatical commander, Colonel Cathcart, keeps increasing the men's quota of missions until they reach the ridiculous figure of 80. The book's central character is Captain Yossarian, the squadron's lead bombardier, who is surrounded at all times by the ironic and incomprehensible and who directs all his energies towards evading his odd role in the war. His companions are an even more peculiar lot: Lieutenant Scheisskopf, who loved to win parades; Major Major Major, the victim of a life-long series of practical jokes, beginning with his name; the mess officer, Milo Minderbinder, who built a food syndicate into an international cartel; and Major de Coverley whose mission in life was to rent apartments for the officers and enlisted men during their rest leaves. Eventually, after Cathcart has exterminated nearly all of Yossarian's buddies through the suicidal missions, Yossarian decides to desert — and he succeeds.
Catch-22 is also concerned with some of war's horrors and atrocities, and it is at times painfully grim.Pub Date: Oct. 10, 1961
ISBN: 0684833395
Page Count: 468
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1961
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