Others have handled the “new mommy” story more capably.
PR executive muddles her way through maternity leave.
Amy Crane used to be a take-charge kind of woman. She managed coveted accounts from her desk at a swank British public-relations agency and had steamy sex with her boyfriend, Joe. One wild night sans birth control changes everything. Now Amy’s got a new boss: her infant daughter Evie. And Evie is a demanding mistress. In an all-too-familiar plot development, poor sleep-deprived Amy can’t seem to get the hang of motherhood. She is sinking into the abyss of maternity leave, and her sex life is nonexistent. Joe’s mysterious behavior serves to exacerbate Amy’s delusions of inadequacy. She’s convinced that Joe’s getting action elsewhere, and she longs to get a grip on her out-of-control life. Amy’s crew of mom-friends from her childbirth class can’t provide any help—they’ve all resigned themselves to wearing matronly clothes and devoting their lives to their offspring. Amy can’t accept this lifestyle, and soon she connects with Alice, a yummy mummy. Alice has lost all her baby weight, has perfectly groomed eyebrows and gets plenty of sexual attention from men. Always one for a shopping spree and makeover project, Alice takes on “Project Amy” and sets about transforming her from a wallflower into a Victoria Beckham–style mom. Once Project Amy is underway, Joe becomes distraught, claiming he wants his familiar girlfriend back. As Amy experiences a sexual reawakening, jealousy rears its head. If Joe and Amy can’t stop bickering and start communicating, their family could disintegrate. Williams, a journalist living in London, takes on many conventional themes in her first stab at fiction. Though there are some clever and endearing moments between mother and child, the bulk of the book is as appealing as reheated leftovers.
Others have handled the “new mommy” story more capably.Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2007
ISBN: 1-4013-0231-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
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
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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