Soapy, fast-paced fun with a murder thrown in for good measure.
In a sequel to New Money (2013), spunky heroine Savannah Morgan navigates New York’s social world while attempting to solve the mysterious death of her father.
The modern Cinderella story continues in the opening: Southern girl Savannah is still dating aspiring writer Alex, her editorial responsibilities have increased at Femme, and she’s still living an enviable life with a Central Park West apartment and a $10,000 a week allowance—all thanks to her late father, media mogul Edward Stone. Though she never knew her father (those gifts over the years were supposedly from an aunt), his will made her an heiress and pushed the children he raised, Ned and Caroline, to the inheritance sidelines. Despite the initial animosity, the three are now committed to finding out the truth about their father’s death. They suspect he may have been ready to blow the whistle on some powerful people—but whom? Sen. Carys Caldwell, with whom he was having an affair? Her jilted husband? The COO of Amicus, accused of polluting a lake and causing the deaths of innocents? Or someone closer to home? Mixed in with the light mystery is the real focus of the novel: the state of Savannah’s various relationships. She breaks it off with Alex because he's too controlling; she gets closer to Caroline and enjoys newfound sisterhood; she and Ned are frequently at loggerheads, though he's endearingly protective; and she builds a romance with Wes Caldwell that's almost too good to be true. Watch out, Savannah! Rosenthal’s prose is occasionally clunky, focusing on inconsequential details, but her heroine's likability makes the flaws forgivable. After some impressive investigative work and a few moments of jeopardy, Savannah cracks the case. Her love life, however, may be less predictable.
Soapy, fast-paced fun with a murder thrown in for good measure.Pub Date: Dec. 2, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-250-04035-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2014
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of...
Lifelong, conflicted friendship of two women is the premise of Hannah’s maudlin latest (Magic Hour, 2006, etc.), again set in Washington State.
Tallulah “Tully” Hart, father unknown, is the daughter of a hippie, Cloud, who makes only intermittent appearances in her life. Tully takes refuge with the family of her “best friend forever,” Kate Mularkey, who compares herself unfavorably with Tully, in regards to looks and charisma. In college, “TullyandKate” pledge the same sorority and major in communications. Tully has a life goal for them both: They will become network TV anchorwomen. Tully lands an internship at KCPO-TV in Seattle and finagles a producing job for Kate. Kate no longer wishes to follow Tully into broadcasting and is more drawn to fiction writing, but she hesitates to tell her overbearing friend. Meanwhile a love triangle blooms at KCPO: Hard-bitten, irresistibly handsome, former war correspondent Johnny is clearly smitten with Tully. Expecting rejection, Kate keeps her infatuation with Johnny secret. When Tully lands a reporting job with a Today-like show, her career shifts into hyperdrive. Johnny and Kate had started an affair once Tully moved to Manhattan, and when Kate gets pregnant with daughter Marah, they marry. Kate is content as a stay-at-home mom, but frets about being Johnny’s second choice and about her unrealized writing ambitions. Tully becomes Seattle’s answer to Oprah. She hires Johnny, which spells riches for him and Kate. But Kate’s buttons are fully depressed by pitched battles over slutwear and curfews with teenaged Marah, who idolizes her godmother Tully. In an improbable twist, Tully invites Kate and Marah to resolve their differences on her show, only to blindside Kate by accusing her, on live TV, of overprotecting Marah. The BFFs are sundered. Tully’s latest attempt to salvage Cloud fails: The incorrigible, now geriatric hippie absconds once more. Just as Kate develops a spine, she’s given some devastating news. Will the friends reconcile before it’s too late?
Dated sermonizing on career versus motherhood, and conflict driven by characters’ willed helplessness, sap this tale of poignancy.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-36408-3
Page Count: 496
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2007
BOOK TO SCREEN
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