This labor of love pens a soft-edged portrait of a subject who struggles to grasp complexity.
A wayward woman with little executive function tries to wrest back control of her life.
The classic advice to write what you know guides many a debut, often to fine effect. Adelman’s first novel is a tender example of this tenet—in the acknowledgments, she offers a tribute to her sister, “whose brain helped inspire Lucy’s.” And her heroine’s brain, damaged in an early childhood car accident, is a marvel: Lucy describes it as “a pinball machine lit up with pockets of potential.” When we meet her, that potential has lain dormant for a while. Coddled by a well-intentioned dad who leaves her a to-do list every morning that includes showering and dressing, Lucy spends her days drinking coffee and trying not to leave the house. Daily tasks and interactions flummox her, but she finds a safe haven in her sketchbook and passing glimpses of her mother, who died many years earlier. This haven implodes when Lucy’s father has a sudden heart attack: her absent younger brother, Nate (a polished 21-year-old who “didn’t have an awkward phase”), swoops in from college, sets her up in his tiny New York apartment, and kicks off the rest of their story. Plenty of plot follows, and minor characters traipse in and out, but none of that is the reason to read Adelman’s book. Lean in instead for the relationship between brother and sister, for its evolution as Lucy builds the strength and willingness both to take care of herself and to recognize and accept Nate’s shortcomings. The chronicle of this incremental shift is peppered with her drawings of people and animals—all done by the author’s sister—which play no small role in making Lucy’s often hazy perspective feel sharply real.
This labor of love pens a soft-edged portrait of a subject who struggles to grasp complexity.Pub Date: Feb. 8, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-393-24570-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2015
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
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