A harebrained tale not even a desperate housewife could love.
An idiotic, implausible novel about three women who use the prospect of sex with a prostitute to get their husbands to lose weight.
Three suburban wives, Brin, Cheryl and Dierdre, have had it up to here with their tubby hubbies, each weighing over three bills. Their ever-ravenous, couch-surfing spouses, Martin, Doug and Randy, refuse to lose weight, so whatever could motivate them? Why, sex with a hot hooker, of course! Brin invents a college friend who’s become a “pro,” and the women tell their guys that they can each have a guilt-free roll in the hay with her once they’ve reached a goal weight of 210 pounds (is 210 svelte nowadays?). Confident they’ve set the bar too high, the wives relax and enjoy their husbands’ initial success. Meanwhile, the boys huff and puff, deny themselves cheez curls and obsess over their prize: Who’s going to get to her first? Are they allowed to make side bets, like whoever loses ten pounds before the others gets the only blowjob? It’s all quite imbecilic and misogynistic yet nonprovocative—like Neil LaBute, de-fanged. Needless to say, the men continue to drop flab at a brisk pace, with the prostitute a constant thought, dangling in front of their minds’ eye like the proverbial carrot—or, in this case, Twinkie. As the scales dip toward 210, Brin, Cheryl and Dierdre start to panic: Should they come clean? Nah—too complicated. Instead, they interview several candidates, hire a lovely intelligent call girl named Cinnamon and book a less-than-seedy hotel room. (Wow—what cool chicks!) In the end, we have several hundred pounds lost as well as one divorce, one marriage holding steady and one couple moving on to explore threesomes with hookers. The moral? Um . . .
A harebrained tale not even a desperate housewife could love.Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2005
ISBN: 1-4000-9845-9
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Three Rivers/Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2005
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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