A lush portrayal of Singapore life filled with vibrant characters and a lovable leading lady readers will root for.
A woman in her 30s contends with her family's expectations as she navigates career and romance in Singapore.
Andrea Tang is 33 and single, much to her mother’s chagrin. Andrea knows her family expected her to be married with children by now, but she’s still reeling from a nasty breakup with her long-term boyfriend, Ivan, and is more concerned with making partner at her law firm than getting engaged. Readers who enjoy their heroines booze-soaked and battle-worn—especially when the battle is being waged against society’s expectations of women, unfair treatment of women in the workplace, and judgmental aunties—will fall hard for fierce yet flawed Andrea. While the diary entries sometimes rely too heavily on dialogue and not enough on Andrea's own thoughts, her inner monologue is the perfect combination of hilariously brash and undeniably honest. She navigates a disastrous one-night stand, her mother’s outspoken disapproval of her lifestyle and relationship status, and her best friend’s soap-operatic dalliance with a married man with snark levels reminiscent of Bridget Jones herself. Of course, despite clocking 15-hour days at the office and eschewing Tinder, Andrea soon finds herself in a romantic entanglement or two. She unexpectedly connects with extremely eligible bachelor Eric Deng at a lavish book club meeting (complete with outlandish cocktail attire, overflowing champagne flutes, and sashimi freshly sliced by a smiling chef) hosted at his Architectural Digest–worthy home. Eric courts Andrea with fresh bouquets, pricey handbags, and fancy dinners, but she isn’t sure whether she can truly commit to the much older, much richer businessman—especially since she still hasn’t figured out why she is so drawn to her engaged work rival, Suresh Aditparan, and his popular webcomic series.
A lush portrayal of Singapore life filled with vibrant characters and a lovable leading lady readers will root for.Pub Date: June 9, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-18781-4
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of...
Hoover’s (November 9, 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.
At first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers; Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. Lily swears she’ll never end up in another abusive home, but when Ryle starts to show all the same warning signs that her mother ignored, Lily learns just how hard it is to say goodbye. When Ryle is not in the throes of a jealous rage, his redeeming qualities return, and Lily can justify his behavior: “I think we needed what happened on the stairwell to happen so that I would know his past and we’d be able to work on it together,” she tells herself. Lily marries Ryle hoping the good will outweigh the bad, and the mother-daughter dynamics evolve beautifully as Lily reflects on her childhood with fresh eyes. Diary entries fancifully addressed to TV host Ellen DeGeneres serve as flashbacks to Lily’s teenage years, when she met her first love, Atlas Corrigan, a homeless boy she found squatting in a neighbor’s house. When Atlas turns up in Boston, now a successful chef, he begs Lily to leave Ryle. Despite the better option right in front of her, an unexpected complication forces Lily to cut ties with Atlas, confront Ryle, and try to end the cycle of abuse before it’s too late. The relationships are portrayed with compassion and honesty, and the author’s note at the end that explains Hoover’s personal connection to the subject matter is a must-read.
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of the survivors.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1036-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Haphazard and undemanding.
A sports agent’s first official client is the man she dumped years ago in college.
After two years of hard work as an underling, Nora Mackenzie is finally being promoted to full-time sports agent. She’s worked hard, kept quiet, and allowed men in the office to call her Mac—a nickname she hates—all to show she’s a team player and “one of the guys.” Unfortunately, her boss instructs her to sign Derek Pender, a football player coming off an injury, who happens to be the man she heartlessly dumped in their senior year of college. Derek signs with her for revenge, seeing it as his opportunity to pay Nora back for callously breaking his heart eight years earlier. He insists she be at his beck and call: answering his emails, running his errands, cooking dinner for his dates. He also refuses to let her explain why she broke up with him without warning or explanation. Nora feels she has no choice but to acquiesce to Derek’s humiliating demands, since she’s worked too hard to let him ruin her dream job. She hopes he’ll thaw and they might become friends, but Derek’s bad behavior is designed to hide the fact that he’s still in love with her. Nora’s characterization is uneven, veering between anger at how she’s treated in the male-dominated field to immature bickering and bantering with Derek. Although Adams likely meant for Derek and Nora’s interactions to have an enemies-to-lovers vibe, the characters instead seem juvenile and stuck in the past. The novel is fueled by a string of tropes—second chance romance! married in Vegas! only one bed!—each randomly deployed to keep the book going despite thin characterization and wan plotting.
Haphazard and undemanding.Pub Date: April 2, 2024
ISBN: 9780593723678
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Dell
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
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