As much middle-aged chick-lit fairy tale as bitchy satire, with a minimal grasp on reality, though Gracie’s voice is...
Screenwriter and novelist Grazer (Maneater, 2003, etc.) may not be happy to be identified as “the wife of” film producer Brian Grazer, given that her romantic satire intends to lampoon the way Hollywood wives of the rich and powerful are locked into soul-numbing pampering.
When 41-year-old Gracie Pollock’s studio big-shot husband Kenny announces that he wants a divorce, Gracie is devastated. No matter that Kenny has no redeeming character or personality traits and is becoming physically unattractive in middle age to boot. A children’s-book author with a regular life before she became a “wife of,” Gracie has spent the last ten years re-creating herself—through surgery, makeup and Pilates—into the sleek, vacuous blonde Kenny wanted, but now he’s sporting an earring and dating Britney Spears (after a sturdy disclaimer, Grazer sprinkles real celebrity names liberally throughout), so Gracie disappears from the Hollywood invite lists. And thanks to a pre-nup, she’s powerless to make settlement demands. When Kenny wants the mansion back, Gracie and her three-year-old daughter, Jaden, borrow the Malibu Colony beach house of Gracie’s friend Joan, who is abroad with her much older husband (until he dumps her for an older woman). One of her new neighbors is Kenny’s boss, the legendary Lou Manahan, still sexy in his 60s. Gracie and he share a jaded view of Hollywood and almost connect romantically—until he announces his intention to stage a fake drowning death to see the reaction at his funeral. Instead, Gracie falls for the handsomely mysterious Sam Knight, who saves her from drowning herself. One little problem: Sam is homeless, sleeping in the backyard of an elderly lady for whom he does odd jobs. Of course, he’s more than he appears.
As much middle-aged chick-lit fairy tale as bitchy satire, with a minimal grasp on reality, though Gracie’s voice is irresistibly engaging.Pub Date: June 2, 2005
ISBN: 0-7432-6502-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2005
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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