Two 20-something bloggers consider American women’s love/hate relationship with food in this amusing second novel from Rockland.
The story opens on the set of Oprah as Alexis (author of the Skinny Chick blog) and Shoshana (of Fat and Fabulous fame) are about to weigh in on weight. Shoshana’s blog advocates that a healthy self-esteem and healthy diet are all women need to feel good about themselves, no matter the dress size. She’s over 200 pounds, and her millions of followers, called Fatties, like her just the way she is. Alexis, barely 100 pounds, writes about America’s alarming obesity epidemic and dictates everyone should count their calories and burn their buns. After the explosive TV appearance, the two part ways and don’t meet again until a year later at the end of the novel. In the meantime, both Shoshana and Alexis come to realize that their fanaticism stems from…issues. Alexis, proud of her tart bitchiness, lives with her best friend Billy. While Billy is flamboyant and fun, Alexis lives a life controlled by weight—she weighs her food, herself, the value of others. She exercises at the crack of dawn to keep her whippet-like figure, but all that flies out the window when she meets Noah, a gorgeous, funny chef. Noah reminds her of her dead brother, and Alexis allows herself to be happy again. Less fragile than Alexis, Shoshana’s life changes when she inherits an old farmhouse and orchard. She befriends her eccentric Irish neighbor and begins restoring the property, with an eye to a new business venture. With all that manual labor, Shoshana begins to drop the pounds while pregnant Alexis begins to put them on, and the two meet in the middle. Occasionally the language lacks polish (“Shoshana had beautiful, stunning hair”) but Rockland’s study of the two women is fresh and enjoyable. Skinny chicks, chubby gals and all in between will connect to this perennially favorite female subject: how much a body should weigh.
Pub Date: Jan. 17, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57601-1
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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