Touching and true descriptions of Zack’s broken family, including a lovely vignette of his retarded brother; the rest is...
Girlfriend problems, workplace problems, deadbeat dad problems, even a cancer scare: The sky is falling on the hapless protagonist of Tropper’s third (The Book of Joe, 2004, etc.).
A very minor earthquake rattles windows in Manhattan, and Zack instinctively reaches out for Tamara before remembering he’s in bed with Hope. The author signals us right off the bat that Tamara is Zack’s soulmate, though it takes 300-plus pages for true love to win out. There are, in fact, good reasons for 32-year-old Zack’s ambivalence. While both women are gorgeous (and feebly differentiated), Tamara is the widow of Zack’s best friend, Rael, who died in a car crash that Zack survived. So he’s now cast in the role of sympathetic friend to Tamara and her small daughter, Sophie, whereas with Hope there are no complications. That’s why the smart, sophisticated Upper East Sider is Zack’s fiancée, and the engagement party is just days away. Zack sees himself as the middleman, unable to turn Hope loose or declare himself to Tamara. In his job, which he hates, he really is a middleman, brokering deals between vendors and manufacturers. Add to the mix Zack’s father, Norm, who shows up after many years’ absence and a bitter divorce from wife Lela. Here again, Zack is ambivalent, raging at his old man’s fecklessness but moved despite himself by Dad’s sentimental warmth. All this, and then Zack rushes to the urologist after seeing blood in his urine. Tropper seems conflicted too. Should he go for bittersweet realism or for laughs? There are lots of Viagra jokes and three slapstick brawls—the last one at the engagement party, when Hope’s father goes ballistic after catching Zack and Tamara smooching. Then Tropper pulls a rabbit out of the hat in the form of an adorable five-year-old, for a shamelessly weepy finale.
Touching and true descriptions of Zack’s broken family, including a lovely vignette of his retarded brother; the rest is fluff.Pub Date: April 5, 2005
ISBN: 0-385-33807-4
Page Count: 335
Publisher: Delacorte
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2005
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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