Bright and entertaining, but ephemeral.
Bohemian Hoboken comes to buttoned-up Georgia in a smarter-than-average, second-time-around romance.
They were clearly made for each other, but gorgeous, fashion-challenged Italian-American filmmaker Angie Mangiamele and “elegant and beautiful and strong” John Grant, academic scion of a significant Southern family, blew their first shot at a relationship in New York five years before this story opens. Lippi (Homestead, 1999) never explains precisely why, but it had something to do with Angie dying her hair blue before meeting John’s grandfather. They’re reunited here by a fairy godmother in the form of Miss Zula Bragg, an elderly black writer and creative-writing teacher at Ogilvie College, where John now works. Miss Zula never fully divulges her reasons for picking Angie’s film company, Tied to the Tracks, to make a college-sponsored documentary about her, but the crew arrives in Georgia only days before John’s wedding to Caroline Rose, predictably upsetting all plans. Small-town gossips, busybodies, family loyalties and traditions supply Lippi’s sharp eye and dry wit with an abundance of material. Her touch is determinedly light, with only occasional references to less cozy issues like segregation and miscegenation that lurk beneath the largely benign Southern surface. Strongly cinematic and keen to compensate with charm for what it lacks in pace and plot, the novel is essentially an intelligent romp. The author pads the on-again/off-again love story with scenes of anger and sex while everyone waits for Caroline to break off the engagement. Lippi delays this until the very last minute, well after the book has run out of steam, while keeping her underlying themes of truth and deception too heavily tamped down.
Bright and entertaining, but ephemeral.Pub Date: June 15, 2006
ISBN: 0-399-15349-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
An excellent debut that combines wit, humor, and emotional intensity.
A woman refuses to be with her soul mate, but life intervenes, making her choice harder and more heartbreaking.
Josh meets Kristen with a bang, literally, when she slams on her brakes and he runs into her. There's minimal damage, so she disappears. Minutes later they discover that their best friends are engaged to each other and they were slated to meet that day at the fire station where Brandon and Josh work. Josh is immediately smitten, but Kristen has a boyfriend, Tyler, who’s deployed overseas. Counting down the days until he gets home for good, Kristen adamantly puts Josh in the friend zone, refusing to acknowledge their growing closeness and her spiking attraction. Then Tyler reenlists, effectively breaking up with her. Kristen and Josh sleep together, but she slams the door on his hope for a real relationship, telling him it will never be more than a friends-with-benefits situation. Josh thinks Kristen is mourning the end of her relationship with Tyler, but really, Kristen realizes Josh is her perfect match. Unfortunately she also knows Josh wants children, which would be nearly impossible for them due to her malfunctioning reproductive system. The two reach a painful impasse, but when tragedy strikes, they find themselves reevaluating their relationship. Josh knows he’ll never be happy without Kristen, but he’ll have to think outside the box to convince her to take a chance on them. Jimenez tackles a myriad of issues in her debut and hits each one with depth and sensitivity. Kristen’s take-no-prisoners attitude is smart and sassy and perfectly balanced by Josh’s easygoing resourcefulness, though at times her lack of transparency while jerking him around makes her seem more immature than self-sacrificing.
An excellent debut that combines wit, humor, and emotional intensity.Pub Date: July 9, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5387-1560-4
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Forever
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an...
True love flares between two people, but they find that circumstances always impede it.
On a winter day in London, Laurie spots Jack from her bus home and he sparks a feeling in her so deep that she spends the next year searching for him. Her roommate and best friend, Sarah, is the perfect wing-woman but ultimately—and unknowingly—ends the search by finding Jack and falling for him herself. Laurie’s hasty decision not to tell Sarah is the second painful missed opportunity (after not getting off the bus), but Sarah’s happiness is so important to Laurie that she dedicates ample energy into retraining her heart not to love Jack. Laurie is misguided, but her effort and loyalty spring from a true heart, and she considers her project mostly successful. Perhaps she would have total success, but the fact of the matter is that Jack feels the same deep connection to Laurie. His reasons for not acting on them are less admirable: He likes Sarah and she’s the total package; why would he give that up just because every time he and Laurie have enough time together (and just enough alcohol) they nearly fall into each other’s arms? Laurie finally begins to move on, creating a mostly satisfying life for herself, whereas Jack’s inability to be genuine tortures him and turns him into an ever bigger jerk. Patriarchy—it hurts men, too! There’s no question where the book is going, but the pacing is just right, the tone warm, and the characters sympathetic, even when making dumb decisions.
Anyone who believes in true love or is simply willing to accept it as the premise of a winding tale will find this debut an emotional, satisfying read.Pub Date: Oct. 16, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-57468-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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