Weisberger’s third effort (Everyone Worth Knowing, 2005, etc.), with the requisite girls’ nights out and disappointing men,...
Three single gals on the cusp of turning the big 3-0 shake up their romantic lives and deal with the consequences.
That Adriana, Emmy and Leigh have remained close since college is a testament to the strength of their bond, since personality-wise they could not be more different. Leigh is a neurotic book editor, Emmy is a financially struggling cooking aficionado and Adriana is a Brazilian knockout living off her rich parents in a swanky penthouse. After serial-monogamist Emmy is suddenly dumped by her longtime beau Duncan (for the personal trainer she hired for him), Adriana insists that the only way Emmy can get over him is by having torrid affairs with foreign men. Easy for the gorgeous Adriana to say. Emmy counters that if she can “slut out” then unrepentant man-eater Adriana has to, for once in her life, have a committed relationship. Let the games begin! Well, at least for Adriana and Emmy. Leigh, for her part, has a job she loves and a “perfect” boyfriend, hunky sportscaster Russell. Or is he perfect? When he proposes, she knows she should be happy, but she instead finds herself getting tangled up with bad boy novelist Jesse Chapman, who happens to be married. Meanwhile, Emmy, courtesy of her new job scouting restaurant locations, embarks on her erotic adventures, while Adriana nabs a slightly dorky big-time Hollywood director she struggles to remain faithful to. She also meets a magazine editor who, impressed by her effortless ways with men, gives Adriana her own advice column, “The Brazilian Girl’s Guide to Man Handling,” which sounds a lot like a sexed-up version of The Rules. The narrative is choppy (the book would have benefited from more editing), and the characters’ obsession with youth, as well as their displays of jealousy and cattiness, are tiring.
Weisberger’s third effort (Everyone Worth Knowing, 2005, etc.), with the requisite girls’ nights out and disappointing men, has some well-observed passages—and Adriana is a hoot—but it’s nothing we haven’t seen before, many times.Pub Date: June 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4165-9019-4
Page Count: 296
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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