The author has strong ideas but relies too heavily on acronyms and abbreviations and fails to create a multidimensional...
West Coast transplant does battle with Manhattan’s über-moms—Kargman’s first solo after co-authoring two books with Carrie Karasyov (Wolves in Chic Clothing, 2005, etc.).
When Hannah Foster’s husband, Josh, announces he’s been offered a dream job in New York City, Hannah supports him completely—even if it means uprooting her two-year-old daughter, Violet, and leaving behind her close-knit group of San Francisco friends. Hannah dutifully packs up their home and heads cross-country. Despite the sterile temporary apartment, Hannah’s determined to make the move work for her family and give Violet an amazing New York experience. Josh, a native New Yorker, won’t have time to help Hannah transition into this strange world. The best he can do is to connect Hannah with a high-school chum, Bee—now the queen of the “momzillas,” or New York’s elite mothers. These size-two gals inhabit Manhattan’s Upper East Side and make it their mission to look flawless while rearing the next generation of Ivy Leaguers. Perfectly groomed and hyper-connected within New York society, Bee and her cohorts can make or break Hannah’s acceptance into this world of $18,000 private preschools. Hannah’s Nine Inch Nails concert tees and Converse sneakers don’t mesh with cashmere twin sets and pearls, but since Hannah wants the very best for Violet, she’s willing to play their game. Making her way in this alien world where moms outsource the dirty work isn’t a snap, and the outwardly helpful Bee has it in for Hannah. Navigating the playground politics of this privileged crowd nearly breaks Hannah’s spirit. Fortunately, she’s able to shake off her naïveté and claim the city in her own way.
The author has strong ideas but relies too heavily on acronyms and abbreviations and fails to create a multidimensional villain. Still, a decent effort that debunks the myth of the perfect mommy.Pub Date: April 17, 2007
ISBN: 0-7679-2478-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Broadway
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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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