A fun, fast read about dating in the city.
A young woman gets a job with an exclusive matchmaking service in Orenstein’s debut.
Sasha Goldberg is a recent college graduate in New York City with a gorgeous finance-bro boyfriend and a roommate who’s her best friend. The one thing she needs? A job. When she applies to work at Bliss, an elite matchmaking service that finds love for its superexclusive, rich, and successful clientele, it seems like fate. She knows what happens when a relationship is a bad match—her mother was a Russian mail-order bride, and her parents divorced when Sasha was a child. Sasha’s certain she can help people find a better match than the one her parents had, and soon she’s knee-deep in the world of the New York dating scene. She learns that finding dates for picky businesspeople is harder than she thought it would be—but then she discovers the unthinkable. Her boyfriend, whom she’d always assumed was just working late, has actually been on Tinder behind her back. She breaks up with him and, in her despair, breaks the one rule Bliss has—she asks out a client. She’d set Adam up with another Bliss client, but since the two of them didn’t hit it off, what’s the harm in going out with him herself? Soon, Sasha is juggling her secret new relationship and her clients’ dating lives. But as her ex tries to win her back and her relationship with Adam gets more serious, things start to get complicated. Will Sasha stick with her old flame, or will she strike out on her own? Orenstein’s writing style is simple, but the plot is engaging enough that readers will find themselves flying through the pages to find out what decisions Sasha will make. Refreshingly, the ending hits a note of realism and refuses to tie things up with a bow.
A fun, fast read about dating in the city.Pub Date: June 26, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-7848-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: April 2, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2018
PROFILES
An ambitious look at how women’s roles have changed—and stayed the same—over the last 70 years.
A sprawling story about two sisters growing up, apart, and back together.
Jo and Bethie Kaufman may be sisters, but they don’t have much else in common. As young girls in the 1950s, Jo is a tomboy who’s uninterested in clothes while Bethie is the “pretty one” who loves to dress up. When their father dies unexpectedly, the Kaufman daughters and their mother, Sarah, suddenly have to learn how to take care of themselves at a time when women have few options. Jo, who realizes early on that she’s attracted to girls, knows that it will be difficult for her to ever truly be herself in a world that doesn’t understand her. Meanwhile, Bethie struggles with her appearance, using food to handle her difficult emotions. The names Jo and Beth aren’t all that Weiner (Hungry Heart, 2016, etc.) borrows from Little Women; she also uses a similar episodic structure to showcase important moments of the sisters’ lives as she follows them from girlhood to old age. They experience the civil rights movement, protests, sexual assault, drugs, sex, and marriage, all while dealing with their own personal demons. Although men are present in both women's lives, female relationships take center stage. Jo and Bethie are defined not by their relationships with husbands or boyfriends, but by their complex and challenging relationships with their mother, daughters, friends, lovers, and, ultimately, each other. Weiner resists giving either sister an easy, tidy ending; their sorrows are the kind that many women, especially those of their generation, have had to face. The story ends as Hillary Clinton runs for president, a poignant reminder of both the strides women have made since the 1950s and the barriers that still hold them back.
An ambitious look at how women’s roles have changed—and stayed the same—over the last 70 years.Pub Date: June 11, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5011-3348-0
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: March 17, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A love letter to the power of books and friendship.
Women become horseback librarians in 1930s Kentucky and face challenges from the landscape, the weather, and the men around them.
Alice thought marrying attractive American Bennett Van Cleve would be her ticket out of her stifling life in England. But when she and Bennett settle in Baileyville, Kentucky, she realizes that her life consists of nothing more than staying in their giant house all day and getting yelled at by his unpleasant father, who owns a coal mine. She’s just about to resign herself to a life of boredom when an opportunity presents itself in the form of a traveling horseback library—an initiative from Eleanor Roosevelt meant to counteract the devastating effects of the Depression by focusing on literacy and learning. Much to the dismay of her husband and father-in-law, Alice signs up and soon learns the ropes from the library’s leader, Margery. Margery doesn’t care what anyone thinks of her, rejects marriage, and would rather be on horseback than in a kitchen. And even though all this makes Margery a town pariah, Alice quickly grows to like her. Along with several other women (including one black woman, Sophia, whose employment causes controversy in a town that doesn’t believe black and white people should be allowed to use the same library), Margery and Alice supply magazines, Bible stories, and copies of books like Little Women to the largely poor residents who live in remote areas. Alice spends long days in terrible weather on horseback, but she finally feels happy in her new life in Kentucky, even as her marriage to Bennett is failing. But her powerful father-in-law doesn’t care for Alice’s job or Margery’s lifestyle, and he’ll stop at nothing to shut their library down. Basing her novel on the true story of the Pack Horse Library Project established by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s, Moyes (Still Me, 2018, etc.) brings an often forgotten slice of history to life. She writes about Kentucky with lush descriptions of the landscape and tender respect for the townspeople, most of whom are poor, uneducated, and grateful for the chance to learn. Although Alice and Margery both have their own romances, the true power of the story is in the bonds between the women of the library. They may have different backgrounds, but their commitment to helping the people of Baileyville brings them together.
A love letter to the power of books and friendship.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-399-56248-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Pamela Dorman/Viking
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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