A sometimes-melodramatic but compelling survivor’s story.
A Pakistani woman lives much of her life in the Middle East, facing many obstacles in her search for love and financial security, in this novel.
Sawera is born in Pakistan in 1978, and is immediately given up for adoption by her biological mother to her sister, then childless. After Sawera’s adoptive parents have two sons, she becomes the family scapegoat, often being beaten by her mother (as when the girl comes home early and catches her parent kissing a man who’s not her husband). Sawera craves acceptance through romance and gains a bad reputation in high school. Jumping into marriage at age 17, she slaves for her husband, Wasim, and his three brothers and father; bears three children; and soon looks for another escape. Like her father before her, she seeks a work visa in Saudi Arabia; leaving her husband behind, she takes her children abroad. The money is good, but working in Saudi Arabia, and later in Bahrain, as an expatriate is a constant scramble for visa extensions and being at the mercy of exploitative sponsors, some extracting money and others sexual favors. Sawera must often leave her kids in Pakistan with relatives while she works, divorces, marries, divorces again, and tries to become a beautician. In the end, her life gets on the right track at last. Sawera both experiences and causes suffering (her children are often lonely and left with unaffectionate caretakers), but Gumber (Dying to Live, 2017, etc.) tells her story as a matter of triumphal survival in harsh circumstances. Something like Becky Sharp, Sawera is a survivor who, despite guilt pangs, sees moralizing as hypocrisy, especially in a world where the rich and well-connected get away so easily with cheating and using the powerless. On occasion, Sawera isn’t very subtle about pulling the heartstrings: Her mother “beat me up so much that I carried the bruises for weeks. My real bruises took an even longer time to heal. The bruises to my soul.” Overall, though, she’s convincing, and admirable in her determination to improve life for herself and her kids.
A sometimes-melodramatic but compelling survivor’s story.Pub Date: Oct. 30, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5462-6498-9
Page Count: 156
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
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