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COMFORT & JOY

Name: COMFORT & JOY
Author: India Knight
ISBN: 978-0-14-311981-4

by India Knight ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2011

Plotless, though clearly warm-hearted holiday fun.

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Knight’s favorite heroine (My Life on a Plate, 2001) returns, now remarried and juggling a hectic mixed family and a potential new love over the course of three consecutive holiday seasons.

It’s two days before Christmas, and Clara Dunphy takes a break for a champagne cocktail during a last-minute shopping trip. Unexpectedly, she meets a handsome stranger who asks her to stay for a drink. Clara is still married, to a choreographer named Sam, and has a daughter with him and two teenaged sons with her first husband, Robert. But things with Sam have been rocky lately, and Clara can’t quite imagine them growing old together. Nonetheless, she returns home to a hectic dinner involving both Sam and Robert, the children, a critical mother, a dottering mother-in-law and several friends in complicated states of single-hood and couple-hood. The brood has a lot to drink and things get awkward, though nothing much actually happens, somewhat emblematic of the novel as a whole. Fast-forward a year. Sam and Clara’s marriage has indeed dissolved, and she has rekindled her relationship with the stranger from the previous Christmas, though everyone except said stranger is gathered again for another dinner at her house. Clara finally seems rightly concerned about the effect of all this on her children, which harkens back to issues from her own childhood (though she did have a consistent father figure, her mother is now on her fourth husband, which clearly haunts her). On the third Christmas featured, Clara takes the show on the road, embarking on a family holiday to Morocco. And what of the stranger? Stay tuned. Clara loves Christmas, and it’s easy to see why—as long as she can keep all the disjointed people in her life together, they will remain, in the best possible ways, a family.

Plotless, though clearly warm-hearted holiday fun.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2011

ISBN: 978-0-14-311981-4

Page Count: 240

Publisher: Penguin

Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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NINETEEN MINUTES

by Jodi Picoult ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 6, 2007

Though all the surface elements are in place, Picoult falters in her exploration of what turns a quiet kid into a murderer.

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Picoult’s 14th novel (after The Tenth Circle, 2006, etc.) of a school shooting begins with high-voltage excitement, then slows by the middle, never regaining its initial pace or appeal.

Peter Houghton, 17, has been the victim of bullying since his first day of kindergarten, made all the more difficult by two factors: In small-town Sterling, N.H., Peter is in high school with the kids who’ve tormented him all his life; and his all-American older brother eggs the bullies on. Peter retreats into a world of video games and computer programming, but he’s never able to attain the safety of invisibility. And then one day he walks into Sterling High with a knapsack full of guns, kills ten students and wounds many others. Peter is caught and thrown in jail, but with over a thousand witnesses and video tape of the day, it will be hard work for the defense to clear him. His attorney, Jordan McAfee, hits on the only approach that might save the unlikable kid—a variation of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder caused by bullying. Thrown into the story is Judge Alex Cormier, and her daughter Josie, who used to be best friends with Peter until the popular crowd forced the limits of her loyalty. Also found dead was her boyfriend Matt, but Josie claims she can’t remember anything from that day. Picoult mixes McAfee’s attempt to build a defense with the mending relationship of Alex and Josie, but what proves a more intriguing premise is the response of Peter’s parents to the tragedy. How do you keep loving your son when he becomes a mass murderer? Unfortunately, this question, and others, remain, as the novel relies on repetition (the countless flashbacks of Peter’s victimization) rather than fresh insight. Peter fits the profile, but is never fully fleshed out beyond stereotype. Usually so adept at shaping the big stories with nuance, Picoult here takes a tragically familiar event, pads it with plot, but leaves out the subtleties of character.

Though all the surface elements are in place, Picoult falters in her exploration of what turns a quiet kid into a murderer.