Green’s 12th novel (Dune Road, 2009, etc.), so intent on a sort-of-happy ending, misses the mark.
Green’s latest summer novel is an uneasy mix of girly romance and cancer.
Once upon a time there were two sisters: Callie has a house in the country, two kids, a dreamy husband and a growing career as a photographer. Steffi is an up-and-coming vegan chef in New York, has a rock-star boyfriend and a charmingly irresponsible life. But because she’s deadly bored with the city (and her boyfriend and her job), Steffi decides to accept the generous offer of acquaintance Mason Gregory. While he and his filthy rich wife Olivia are in London for a year, Steffi will dog sit Fingal at their country house, which happens to be close to Callie’s place. Steffi loves the country, loves feeding the chickens and the goats, loves the quiet of the beautiful house and the little business she’s beginning, supplying healthy food to the town. But most importantly, she’s there for Callie, whose splitting headache has developed into a hospital stay, which leads to the diagnosis of terminal cancer. Their parents (who have been divorced for 30 years and never speak) come down from Maine; Callie’s driven husband Reece does the unthinkable—stops working to look after the children he barely knows; and best friend Lila becomes an advocate for Callie, navigating the family through the nightmare of her illness. An effervescent soul, Callie wants to live through her loved ones, and soon the fractured lives of those she cares about begin to come together, just as Callie lies dying. Green’s sad story (the novel is inspired by a close friend who died) seems more of a catalyst for romance and positive life change rather than a drama, resulting in an emotionally disjointed read.
Green’s 12th novel (Dune Road, 2009, etc.), so intent on a sort-of-happy ending, misses the mark.Pub Date: June 15, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-670-02179-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: June 3, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2010
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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