Atkinson's follow-up to her Whitbread-winning Behind the Scenes at the Museum (1996) is a self-consciously smart and mildly amusing family saga. Isobel Fairfax, age 16, narrates the busy goings-on at Fairfax Manor, an ostensibly cursed mock-Tudor in a suburb in northern England—although the events she describes may well be fantasies, embellished with tidbits from Shakespeare and Ovid and whatever else she's reading in school. The Fairfax family, as Isobel presents them, is a wildly dysfunctional cast of caricatures: There's sour Aunt Vinnie, who's always draped in cats; brother Charles, who's obsessed with alien abductions; and ineffectual dad Gordon and his plump second wife Debbie, who imagines that the sausages she's about to barbecue are moving about on their plate. When Isobel is not deep in lustful thoughts about Malcolm, the local gynecologist's son, she time-travels and has brief and remarkably uneventful interludes in earlier eras. And both she and Charles desperately miss their long-disappeared mum, Eliza. World War II hero Gordon plucked glamorous Eliza from the rubble of a London bombing, then brought her home to the Manor, where his widowed mother and Vinnie criticized her every move. Although besotted with his wife, Gordon couldn't break with his mother, and the marriage was strained. During a picnic, Charles and Isobel were left alone, only to toddle upon the body of their mother: Did Gordon kill her before disappearing for seven years to avoid the law, leaving his kids to repress the memory and get brought up by Vinnie? This is only one of many hyperventilating mysteries that Isobel sifts through: violent deaths, stolen babies, and sexual peccadilloes galore crowd Fairfax family history. Isobel's semi-jaded wisecracking serves up some mild laughs, but this exercise in over-deliberated cleverness, while never dull, is ultimately more exhausting than engaging. (Author tour)
Pub Date: May 12, 1997
ISBN: 0-312-15550-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Picador
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1997
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Picoult’s strengths are evident in her exhaustively researched and gut-wrenching demonstration of OI’s devastating effects...
In another issue-driven novel, Picoult (Change of Heart, 2008, etc.) explores the impact of “wrongful birth” litigation on an ordinary New Hampshire family.
Charlotte O’Keefe, a prominent pastry chef, was thrilled when she conceived at age 38 without resorting to fertility treatments. Although she has a daughter, Amelia, by a previous relationship, she and her new husband, police officer Sean, wanted a child of their own. Charlotte’s best friend Piper unwisely agrees to be her OB-GYN. Eighteen weeks into the pregnancy, during a routine ultrasound, Piper, looking for signs of possible Down syndrome, discounts the import of the fetus’s unusually transparent cranium. At 27 weeks, another ultrasound reveals that Charlotte’s daughter has sustained several fractures in utero, a sign that she suffers from osteogenesis imperfecta (OI), a rare congenital defect that causes brittle bones and severe complications (including scoliosis, respiratory problems and years of costly orthopedic interventions). Now age six, Willow, still toddler-sized, cannot walk, play or even turn over in bed without risking a compound fracture. Charlotte abandoned her career to care for Willow 24/7. Although Willow is precocious intellectually and for the most part a joy to be around, her illness is, inarguably, a drain on family finances and emotions. After a vacation at Disney World goes horribly awry, the O’Keefes spiral apart. Charlotte decides to file a wrongful-birth lawsuit against Piper. The proceeds from the lawsuit, she rationalizes, would provide the quality of lifetime care Willow needs, even if suing amounts to betrayal. Sean is appalled by the implications of the lawsuit: that Willow should never have been born, and that Charlotte, if properly cautioned, would have contemplated abortion. Amelia, once a normal teen, becomes a bulimic, self-mutilating shoplifter.
Picoult’s strengths are evident in her exhaustively researched and gut-wrenching demonstration of OI’s devastating effects and the impact of a child’s disability on a sibling. However, too often characterization takes a back seat to polemic. Worse, the central moral quandary is undermined by an overly pat resolution.Pub Date: March 3, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-7432-9641-0
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2009
A story about survival that is heartbreakingly honest and wryly funny, perfect for fans of Jojo Moyes and Elizabeth Berg.
A woman faces a new life after surviving a plane crash in this moving story from Center (Happiness for Beginners, 2015, etc.).
Margaret Jacobsen has always been afraid of flying—which is why she’s extra hesitant to get in a plane flown by her pilot-in-training boyfriend, Chip, on Valentine’s Day. When Chip proposes in the air, Margaret has everything she’s ever wanted: an MBA, a great job lined up, and now the fiance of her dreams. But then Margaret’s biggest nightmare becomes a reality: The plane crashes. Chip walks away without a scratch while Margaret has severe burns on her neck and a spinal cord injury. Suddenly, everything about Margaret’s life has changed: Her job offer is rescinded, Chip can’t cope with her injuries, and she may never walk again. Now, Margaret has only her family to depend on—her well-meaning but controlling mother, her loving father, and her black-sheep sister, Kitty, who returns to town after years of estrangement. As her family members try in their own ways to motivate Margaret, she also has to get through physical therapy with Ian, the world’s grumpiest Scottish physical therapist. He has a prickly exterior, but Margaret slowly begins to realize that there may be more to him than she initially thought. A story that could be either uncompromisingly bleak or unbearably saccharine is neither in Center’s hands; Margaret faces her challenges with a sense of humor that feels natural. She has days when the reality of her changed life hits her and she can’t get out of bed, and she has moments where she and Kitty laugh so hard they cry. What she ultimately learns is that while her life may be much different than she expected and she may never be fully healed, as Ian puts it, “It’s the trying that heals you.” Margaret learns to take control of her own life in the wake of loss and change, trying to form a life she wants instead of a life everyone else wants for her. Center’s characters, especially Margaret and Kitty, leap off the page with their unique voices, and their relationships evolve slowly and satisfyingly. Although this is largely the story of Margaret learning to make the most of her life, it’s also a touching and believable love story with plenty of romantic-comedy flourishes.
A story about survival that is heartbreakingly honest and wryly funny, perfect for fans of Jojo Moyes and Elizabeth Berg.Pub Date: May 15, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-14906-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: March 4, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2018
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