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 strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
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