Higgins balances humor and a touch of pathos to deliver an amiable tale of friendship.
At the urging of a dying friend, three women take life-altering risks.
As the novel opens, Rachel has already died of cancer. It is a cosmic joke that Rachel, mountain climber, base jumper, sky diver, lived a life of extreme adventure unscathed, only to succumb to an ordinary disease. After her death, her best friends receive letters with a last request: Kate, an over-scheduled soccer mom, is to go sky-diving; Sarah, a relief worker in Africa, is to track down the doctor she once loved; and career woman Jo, man-killer, is to become legal guardian to Rachel’s 7-year-old daughter Gracie. After Kate sky-dives for the second time, she mentions it to husband Paul, who is none too pleased that his dependable wife is taking afternoons off to risk her life. But she loves it, and it makes her see how stiff her marriage has become, how tied to her children’s lives she is, how she has somehow disappeared. The strain on her marriage is solidified when she decides to accompany Sarah to India to track down Dr. Colin O’Rourke. Fourteen years ago in the Peace Corps in Paraguay, the two fell in love, he left, and Sarah has been holding a torch for the god-like doctor ever since. Finding him is Rachel’s last request, so once and for all Sarah can move on. When Sarah and Kate arrive in India, Sam, a dashing colleague of Sarah’s in Africa, is there to greet them. It is no coincidence—he’s in love with Sarah and has followed her, but she only has room for Colin. When they eventually meet, it seems he’s been carrying a torch too. In the midst of this exotic romance, Jo is in New York with Gracie, as she tries to make a home (baby gates? Mac and cheese? Barbie?) for a traumatized orphan. Of course the women learn their lessons—live life more fully—but only Jo’s challenge is vital: to learn how to become a mother.
Higgins balances humor and a touch of pathos to deliver an amiable tale of friendship.Pub Date: Jan. 26, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-446-56351-2
Page Count: 352
Publisher: 5 Spot/Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2010
BOOK REVIEW
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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