by Meg Waite Clayton ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 30, 2013
Contrived and convoluted in effecting feel-good spirituality.
This sequel to The Wednesday Sisters (2008) follows a second generation of sensitive friends as they travel to a cottage in England’s Lake District to uncover secrets and bond, as Clayton’s female characters are wont to do.
Asha, a 40-ish lawyer also called Hope by her friends, has come to the cottage where her mother, Allison, an unpublished writer of children’s stories about animals, spent a lot of time before her recent death. Asha is accompanied by Anna Page, a 51-year-old heart surgeon and the daughter of literary editor Kath; and 48-year-old librarian Julie, the daughter of Linda and sister of recently deceased Jamie. Each woman has issues: Asha, whose maternal grandparents had nothing to do with her because her father was Indian, is facing a crisis in her marriage to Kevin, who wants to start a family; never married Anna Page loves to play matchmaker for her friends, and even her mother, but has always avoided commitment/intimacy herself, probably because she was scarred by her father’s long-term adultery; grieving Julie has been having an affair with Jamie’s widower. In England, whiny Asha, who resents drama queen Anna Page’s closeness to Allison, finds Allison’s journal in which Beatrix Potter figures prominently, as if the dead author were still alive—passionate appreciation of Beatrix Potter is required to enjoy this novel. Asha also discovers both Allison’s secret about her own heritage and her secret relationship with wealthy neighbor Graham. Meanwhile, Anna Page manipulates bookish, guilt-ridden Julie into a seemingly unlikely relationship with boatman Robbie, who is really a poet from Ireland on his own secret mission concerning his dead wife. Anna Page, who has a tendency to hand nice men over to others and keep jerks for herself, also tries to set up her visiting mother with Graham. But the men, handsome and sensitive as they may be, are really not the point, since the message is that these women solve each other’s problems and know each other best.
Contrived and convoluted in effecting feel-good spirituality.Pub Date: July 30, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-345-53028-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2013
Share your opinion of this book
More by Meg Waite Clayton
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
by J.D. Salinger ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 15, 1951
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
Share your opinion of this book
More by J.D. Salinger
BOOK REVIEW
More About This Book
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 2006
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
Share your opinion of this book
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Hey there, book lover.
We’re glad you found a book that interests you!
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Don’t fret. We’ll find you.