A nuanced tale of a woman on the cusp of finding herself.
In Goodrobb’s novel, a trip to Jamaica turns into a voyage of self-discovery for a young American woman struggling with grief.
Twenty-nine-year-old Joanna and her longtime boyfriend, Michael, who’s the same age, have vacationed in Jamaica several times over the course of their nine-year relationship. However, the tragic death of their beloved dog, Reggae, devastated them both, so they plan to spend their latest voyage grieving the loss and reconnecting as a couple. At first, the Jamaican trip seems like the balm they desperately need as they spend time with their friends Dave and Jeevan, smoke cannabis, and enjoy Red Stripe beers at a local bar in the small fishing village of Negril.Still, tensions simmer: Michael wants to explore an open relationship, but Joanna is wary of the idea. When Michael returns to the United States for a work-related project, and Dave leaves Jamaica due to a family crisis, Joanna finds herself drawing closer to Jeevan, who shows her the harsh realities of life in Jamaica. They embark on an affair, which arouses the jealousy of his partner, Dahlia. Along the way, Joanna discovers that the island has a lot to teach her about life and love. Goodrobb’s debut romance is a thoughtful portrait of a woman who met her live-in boyfriend when she was 20 and has never truly lived alone: “Her fear of being alone and unloved had morphed into a monster that overpowered and consumed her, so that every action she took was meant to escape that beast.” The author reveals how her protagonist’s solo stay in Jamaica forces her to make mature, adult decisions for the first time in her life. Goodrobb is particularly adept at showing how Joanna navigates the complexities of relationships—not only with Jeevan, but also in her tenuous friendship with Dahlia. The vibrant supporting cast includes Momma Samuel, the matriarch of a large family who guides Joanna as she discovers her sense of independence.
A nuanced tale of a woman on the cusp of finding herself.Pub Date: June 15, 2021
ISBN: 9798515856472
Page Count: 171
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: April 21, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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