CRANBERRY QUEEN

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.