For a certain middle-of-the-road, book-loving, romantic sensibility, a perfect escape novel. Despite its off-the-charts...
With more warmth and fuzziness than Harrod’s sweater department, up-and-comer Green (Mr. Maybe, 2001, etc.) offers a near-perfect—and near perfectly clichéd—romantic wish-fulfillment fantasy, complete with perfect gay best friend, perfect bookshop, perfect Hugh Grant–like love object, and perfectly coy tricks to keep the lovers apart for 400 pages.
Cathy (wisecracking, frizzy hair, slightly overweight, can’t be bothered with makeup), Josh, and Si all met at university, when the center of their circle was elegant, stunning, Portia. All changed when Portia seduced Josh just so somebody else couldn't have him, then walked away. Ten years later, Josh has married perfect wife and mother Lucy. Cath—long celibate but content to spend her free time in the warm glow of her perfect kitchen with best friend Si—has a successful advertising career. And nobody has seen Portia since graduation. When Lucy, the best cook in London, proposes that she and Cath open a bookstore/café, they meet charming real-estate agent James, who, as it happens, is also a brilliant painter. Everything is perfectly lovely, studded with long cozy brunches and dinners, until the shop opens and Portia, now a celebrity TV writer, walks back into their lives. From there, Green pushes forward her scenes that slather on the coziness “like layers of snuggly warm clothes” with glaringly obvious plot-teasers (Did Portia come back for Josh? Is James sleeping with the sexy au pair? Will James forgive Cath for canceling their date? Will Si realize that his arrogant boyfriend is a bastard?) that could be resolved with a phone call but aren’t. Even the one bit of grim reality (Si turns up HIV-positive), used first to keep Cath and James apart a bit longer, turns into an opportunity for true love and another dinner party.
For a certain middle-of-the-road, book-loving, romantic sensibility, a perfect escape novel. Despite its off-the-charts predictability, only the coldest of hearts will not be warmed.Pub Date: June 11, 2002
ISBN: 0-7679-0780-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Broadway
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2002
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
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
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
