Weiner’s voice rings true as she flouts conventional wisdom about what women want. An unpredictable and impressive debut.
A Philadelphia Inquirer columnist takes a fresh look at the miseries visited on women by their lovers, fathers, and themselves as they try to conquer the world by waging war on their own bodies.
Cannie Shapiro has a lot to be thankful for: a diploma from Princeton, an affordable apartment, and a job covering the pop culture scene for the Philadelphia Examiner that not only pays the rent but offers perks like lunch with the latest Oscar contenders. Still, more is sometimes less, as she discovers when Bruce Guberman, her slacker ex, lands a job at Moxie writing a column called “Good in Bed.” His sign-on effort, “Loving a Larger Woman,” is the opening salvo in a series of journalistic invasions of privacy that send this rock-solid reporter reeling. She blows off steam first to her sympathetic best friend Samantha, then to her preoccupied mother (who recently swore off men altogether and set up housekeeping with a swimming instructor named Tanya), and finally to the perpetrator himself, flinging a barrage of invective and a half-used box of tampons at his unworthy head. But afterward Cannie reconsiders—after all, the point of his column is that, despite her dimensions, Bruce loved her—only to find her former partner vague and evasive. There’s one brief encounter the night of his father’s funeral before Bruce gives Cannie a no-frills brushoff, ignoring her tentatively conciliatory calls. Cannie seeks refuge in the University of Pennsylvania’s Weight and Eating Disorders Clinic until its kindly director, Dr. Krushelevansky, informs her that she’s been washed out of their newest clinical trial because of her pregnancy. Now Cannie has truly weighty matters on her mind as she confronts her losses, past and present, in order to secure the future for herself and her child.
Weiner’s voice rings true as she flouts conventional wisdom about what women want. An unpredictable and impressive debut.Pub Date: May 8, 2001
ISBN: 0-7434-1816-6
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an...
True love flares between two people, but they find that circumstances always impede it.
On a winter day in London, Laurie spots Jack from her bus home and he sparks a feeling in her so deep that she spends the next year searching for him. Her roommate and best friend, Sarah, is the perfect wing-woman but ultimately—and unknowingly—ends the search by finding Jack and falling for him herself. Laurie’s hasty decision not to tell Sarah is the second painful missed opportunity (after not getting off the bus), but Sarah’s happiness is so important to Laurie that she dedicates ample energy into retraining her heart not to love Jack. Laurie is misguided, but her effort and loyalty spring from a true heart, and she considers her project mostly successful. Perhaps she would have total success, but the fact of the matter is that Jack feels the same deep connection to Laurie. His reasons for not acting on them are less admirable: He likes Sarah and she’s the total package; why would he give that up just because every time he and Laurie have enough time together (and just enough alcohol) they nearly fall into each other’s arms? Laurie finally begins to move on, creating a mostly satisfying life for herself, whereas Jack’s inability to be genuine tortures him and turns him into an ever bigger jerk. Patriarchy—it hurts men, too! There’s no question where the book is going, but the pacing is just right, the tone warm, and the characters sympathetic, even when making dumb decisions.
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an emotional, satisfying read.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-57468-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK TO SCREEN
To her usual mix of love, mystery, and passion, Roberts (Sanctuary, 1997, etc.)—author of 115 romancers in some 17 years—adds Renaissance art and a decidedly Medici-like family: the Joneses of Maine. Dr. Miranda Jones, nearly six feet with flaming red hair and a glacial reserve, is an archeometrist who specializes in the analyzing and dating of Renaissance bronze sculpture. Miranda hopes to secure a world-class reputation for herself by authenticating a 15th-century statue of the Dark Lady, one of the mistresses of Lorenzo the Magnificent, as the undiscovered work of a young Michelangelo. Miranda's mother, Dr. Elizabeth Standford-Jones, the emotionally remote director of the Standjo art lab in Florence, has summoned her daughter from the family's Victorian cliffside home in Jones Point, Maine, to test the statue. Meanwhile, Miranda's father, equally remote, is an archaeologist who spends more time at his digs than at home. In fact, no one in the Jones family has made a successful run at marriage, a failure that Miranda and her alcoholic brother Andrew call the Jones curse. As for the statue, when it's discovered to be a fake, Miranda sets out to prove that someone stole the original. In this she's helped by gorgeous art thief Ryan Boldari (half-Italian, half-Irish), who's come to Jones Point to steal yet another bronze, which also turns out to be a forgery. Ryan's plan had been to use Miranda as a pawn, but now, naturally, he finds himself falling hard for her. While the two search for bronzes, a standard-issue romance-novel psychotic is stalking them. Most readers will twig to the killer's identity: Here, as always, Roberts's sexual tension is more compelling than her suspense. Perhaps it's time to take a sabbatical from the pink sweatshop and turn her considerable wit and narrative skills to a more original piece of work.
Pub Date: March 23, 1998
ISBN: 0-399-14387-4
Page Count: 464
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1998
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