Variously shadowy, exasperating and snappish characters populate a delicate, muted, not quite complete tale.
The uneasy relationship between two differently self-absorbed women leads to betrayal and tragedy.
Opening in 1995 at the memorial service for suicide David Bronstein, Cline’s second novel (What to Keep, 2004) loops backward to reveal what preceded this moment—for David, his ex-girlfriend, Annabeth Jensen, and her ex-friend/employer, film director Laura Katz. Annabeth, a young film editor and the product of a dysfunctional Minnesotan family (her drunken father disappeared and her mother never accepted it), is perpetually anxious. Her live-in relationship with David seemed initially fulfilling but has become disappointing, which is something of a pattern in her life; it was the same with her feelings about Los Angeles, even with a trip to the Oscars. When Annabeth bumps into charismatic Laura at a party, she feels excited—they share an obsession with film which makes their soon burgeoning friendship seem like dating. But Laura is inconsistent, first soliciting Annabeth’s opinion on the script she’s planning to shoot—Trouble Doll, about Bunny, a Midwestern girl in L.A.—then not following up. Laura does hire Annabeth as her editor when the shoot begins, but the relationship starts to fray, and Laura fires Annabeth before the film is complete. From the depths of her depression, Annabeth fails to notice David’s increasing fragility and on seeing the finished Trouble Doll she realizes Laura has stolen scenes from her own childhood and attributed them to loser Bunny, who “doesn’t make any real decisions about her life until it’s too late.” Annabeth’s subsequent withdrawal from David brings the story—and the parallel narrative—full circle.
Variously shadowy, exasperating and snappish characters populate a delicate, muted, not quite complete tale.Pub Date: Feb. 26, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4000-6227-0
Page Count: 274
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2007
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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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