A quirky novel perfect for rom-com fans and readers looking for a little sweet escapism.
A Columbus, Ohio, woman who became the unwitting inspiration for a new rom-com struggles with all the ways her real life doesn’t seem destined for a happily-ever-after ending.
At almost 30 years old, Chloe Sanderson doesn't have the life she expected. Her mother disappeared from her and her twin brother Milo’s lives when they were just 10, and her father, whom she loves, was too shell-shocked to handle the responsibility. So Chloe, just a child herself, took care of them. Now she's trying to finish her college degree online, working in a coffee shop that she loves, and spending almost all her money and mental energy on her dad, who now has Alzheimer’s disease and is staying at an assisted living residence where Tracey, her ex-girlfriend, works. She's in constant turmoil about her need to run to her dad's side every time Tracey calls when every iota of her being just wants ignore the demands on her time and instead start a relationship with her boss, Nick, who's very interested in her. Her should-I/should-I-not anguish is significantly complicated by the fact that her best friend, Annie, has written a soon-to-premier rom-com, Coffee Girl, that imagines a world where Chloe and Nick (well Zoe and Rick) do get together. Fans of author Winfrey’s previous book, Waiting for Tom Hanks (2019), will recognize Chloe, Nick, and Annie, though this time Chloe is the heroine and Annie the sidekick. Winfrey excels at upending typical romantic comedy tropes, and Chloe is a complicated, realistic, believable character. Sitcoms, movies, and music are all heavily referenced in the story; fans of the TV series New Girl will no doubt love this book.
A quirky novel perfect for rom-com fans and readers looking for a little sweet escapism.Pub Date: July 7, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-984804-04-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Berkley
Review Posted Online: April 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2020
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.
A lifetime’s worth of letters combine to portray a singular character.
Sybil Van Antwerp, a cantankerous but exceedingly well-mannered septuagenarian, is the titular correspondent in Evans’ debut novel. Sybil has retired from a beloved job as chief clerk to a judge with whom she had previously been in private legal practice. She is the divorced mother of two living adult children and one who died when he was 8. She is a reader of novels, a gardener, and a keen observer of human nature. But the most distinguishing thing about Sybil is her lifelong practice of letter writing. As advancing vision problems threaten Sybil’s carefully constructed way of life—in which letters take the place of personal contact and engagement—she must reckon with unaddressed issues from her past that threaten the house of cards (letters, really) she has built around herself. Sybil’s relationships are gradually revealed in the series of letters sent to and received from, among others, her brother, sister-in-law, children, former work associates, and, intriguingly, literary icons including Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry. Perhaps most affecting is the series of missives Sybil writes but never mails to a shadowy figure from her past. Thoughtful musings on the value and immortal quality of letters and the written word populate one of Sybil’s notes to a young correspondent while other messages are laugh-out-loud funny, tinged with her characteristic blunt tartness. Evans has created a brusque and quirky yet endearing main character with no shortage of opinions and advice for others but who fails to excavate the knotty difficulties of her own life. As Sybil grows into a delayed self-awareness, her letters serve as a chronicle of fitful growth.
An affecting portrait of a prickly woman.Pub Date: May 6, 2025
ISBN: 9780593798430
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2025
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
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