Forgettable.
Self-absorbed, rather silly first novel about an orphaned yuppie.
Diana Moore, 33, is rising quickly through the ranks at a prestigious New York dot-com, although her controlling boss, Darius, is a pain in her highly toned glutes. The worst thing that’s ever happened to her thus far: an invitation to a wedding, where she’ll have to see her ex-boyfriend and his new love all huggy and happy. But she ends up not going when her beloved parents and brother Ben are killed in a car crash on the New Jersey turnpike. Devastated and emotionally adrift, Diana quits her meaningless job because Darius just doesn’t understand how she is totally, like, alone in the world. Refusing the services of a grief counselor and other trendy therapies, she heads out of the city in her trusty old Volvo, taking backroads, haunted by vivid memories of her parents, and none too aware of where she’s going. Somewhere in New Jersey? Maybe like the Pine Barrens? There’s pine trees and sand and nature and stuff, according to our somewhat incoherent heroine, and then—ohmigod! She accidentally runs into Rosie, a nutty old lady riding a motorcycle in slippers! These other people—Rosie’s relatives—show up out of nowhere and are actually mad at her, even though Diana is, like, incredibly sorry and really upset. So upset that she suddenly decides to pass herself off as a friendly if lost soul from South Carolina, and the eccentric clan of cranberry farmers somehow believe her for a while. Hey, beautiful, tough Louisa and sexy Jack and Fritz and Billy aren’t anything like the spoiled, affluent city-dwellers she knows—no, they are Real People leading Real Lives in the boggy rural paradise they call home, boldly drinking beer from the bottle and telling it like it is. Anodyne indeed for Diana’s heartsickness, enabling her to come to terms with the tragedy that shattered her life.
Forgettable.Pub Date: June 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7868-6765-5
Page Count: 240
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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