Medwed’s signature wit does not overcome the vapid, overly sanguine plot.
Mothers-in-law are the villains in the newest comedy from Massachusetts resident Medwed (How Elizabeth Barrett Browning Saved My Life, 2006, etc.).
As the novel opens, narrator Maisie is trying to decide what to do with a container of frozen breast milk that has been left in her freezer. The milk belongs to ex-boyfriend lawyer Jack’s pro bono client Darlene, whose ex-mother-in-law is suing for custody of Darlene’s 15-month-old son. When Jack asks Maisie to hire Darlene as an assistant at her company, Factotum Inc., how can she refuse? After all, Maisie’s own marriage to Rex, heir to a frozen-chicken business, failed largely because Rex could not stand up to his overbearing mother, who has always been “Mrs. Pollock” to Maisie. Now Mrs. Pollock is trying to horn in on Maisie’s 16-year-old son Tommy. Maisie herself isn’t too crazy about Tommy’s new girlfriend September, especially when the kids announce that since September’s mother—a true no-good mom—has kicked her out, she’s moving in with Tommy and Maisie. Then Mrs. Pollock finds a baggie of mysterious white powder while searching Tommy’s backpack. At the hospital where Maisie takes the bag (the powder turns out to be gumdrop residue), she meets social worker Gabe. Gabe is a mama’s boy too, but luckily for Maisie, his mother is dead. Soon Maisie does some parenting of her own: She demands that September stay in school. September agrees. In fact, she embraces it, explaining that all she has ever wanted is a mother to give her advice. Meanwhile, Darlene is proving an excellent worker. At the custody hearing Maisie attends with Darlene to offer moral support, Darlene and her mother-in-law spar only briefly before finding common ground in their love for baby Anthony. The ease of resolution is as difficult to believe as Maisie’s attraction to bland Gabe.
Medwed’s signature wit does not overcome the vapid, overly sanguine plot.Pub Date: April 22, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-06-083121-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2008
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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