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GOODBYE, VITAMIN

Name: GOODBYE, VITAMIN
Author: Rachel Khong
ISBN: 978-1-250-10916-3

by Rachel Khong ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 2017

Khong’s pithy observations and cynical humor round out a moving story that sparks empathy where you’d least expect it.

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Former Lucky Peach executive editor Khong (All About Eggs: Everything We Know About the World’s Most Important Food, 2017) whisks up a heartfelt family dramedy in a debut novel that ruminates on love, loss, and memory.

Last June, Ruth Young was engaged and packing to move to a spacious apartment in Bernal Heights, San Francisco, when her fiance, Joel, broke the news that he wasn’t moving with her. Now 30, single, and still raw from the jarring breakup (and the gutting knowledge that Joel has a new, undoubtedly cooler, girlfriend), Ruth returns to her family’s home for the holidays. But instead of escaping her past, Ruth must face another obstacle upon arriving in Los Angeles—her father, esteemed history professor Howard Young, has Alzheimer’s disease, and it’s rapidly worsening. To alleviate her mother’s stress, Ruth quits her job in San Francisco—reluctantly joining “the unmarried and careerless boat”—and moves back in with her parents to care for her irascible father, who, notwithstanding his failing memory and bizarre behaviors (such as carrying a urinal cake in his pocket), insists he’s fine. Written in chronological vignettes spanning a year, Ruth’s vivid narration reads much like an intimate diary. In an effort to stave off her boredom at home, Ruth sleuths around her father’s unkempt office, digs for evidence of an extramarital affair, and even schemes with Howard’s former students to keep him under the illusion that he’s still actively teaching. As Howard’s memories fade, Ruth’s rise to the surface. Recollections of her father’s drinking problem and recent infidelity send her spiraling among resentment, disgust, and (unwittingly) compassion toward her parents. Ultimately, it’s Howard’s flaws that move Ruth to examine her own. Ruth and Howard are a hilarious father-daughter duo, at turns destructive and endearing, and entries from a notebook that Howard kept during Ruth’s childhood serve as an enriching back story to their deep bond.

Khong’s pithy observations and cynical humor round out a moving story that sparks empathy where you’d least expect it.

Pub Date: July 11, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-250-10916-3

Page Count: 208

Publisher: Henry Holt

Review Posted Online: May 1, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2017

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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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

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

by Harper Lee ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 11, 1960

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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.