Dunn’s dryly humorous story about a marriage that goes dangerously off-road never loses its groove.
This novel about a couple that agrees to have an open marriage, for a limited time only and while adhering to certain rules, is a polished, amusing, and highly entertaining take on modern relationships, parenthood, and suburbia.
When Owen and Lucy—an attractive young married couple who, shortly after their on-the-spectrum 5-year-old son, Wyatt, was born, swapped their hip New York City existence for life in a small, “pretty Norman Rockwell-y” Hudson Valley town—first hear, one boozy night, about Brooklyn friends’ plan to allow each other to have sex with other people, they are scandalized. But soon, they find themselves drawing up a set of rules spelling out for themselves a similar arrangement, a finite period of infidelity, a six-month marital “rumspringa,” Owen calls it: no falling in love, no talking about it or snooping, no sex with anyone in their crowd, no looking too happy, and definitely no leaving. “We’re joking about this, right?” Owen asks. “Yes, we’re joking,” says Lucy. But then, it turns out, no, they aren’t. What follows is a superfun, pleasingly light romp through the promise and pitfalls of marital infidelity, the trials and rewards of parenting, and the joys and frustrations of life in an upscale small town for the transplanted urban couple. The premise may sound contrived, its subject matter trite and fluffy, and its characters overly stereotypical, and it likely would be in less able hands. But Dunn, an accomplished TV writer and producer (Murphy Brown, Spin City, Bunheads, American Housewife) who has written two previous novels (The Big Love, 2004, and Secrets to Happiness, 2009), is a total pro—and the book is smartly conceived, sharply written, perfectly paced, and, even at its most madcap moments, entirely believable and engaging. Despite Owen and Lucy’s self-made troubles, they are eminently sympathetic and disarmingly appealing, as are the parade of amusing supporting characters and plotlines. (More Sunny Bang, please!) Chick lit? Perhaps, but, witty and well-written, it’s the most satisfying sort—a true guilty pleasure.
Dunn’s dryly humorous story about a marriage that goes dangerously off-road never loses its groove.Pub Date: March 21, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-316-01359-8
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 26, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
A tour de force.
In 1974, a troubled Vietnam vet inherits a house from a fallen comrade and moves his family to Alaska.
After years as a prisoner of war, Ernt Allbright returned home to his wife, Cora, and daughter, Leni, a violent, difficult, restless man. The family moved so frequently that 13-year-old Leni went to five schools in four years. But when they move to Alaska, still very wild and sparsely populated, Ernt finds a landscape as raw as he is. As Leni soon realizes, “Everyone up here had two stories: the life before and the life now. If you wanted to pray to a weirdo god or live in a school bus or marry a goose, no one in Alaska was going to say crap to you.” There are many great things about this book—one of them is its constant stream of memorably formulated insights about Alaska. Another key example is delivered by Large Marge, a former prosecutor in Washington, D.C., who now runs the general store for the community of around 30 brave souls who live in Kaneq year-round. As she cautions the Allbrights, “Alaska herself can be Sleeping Beauty one minute and a bitch with a sawed-off shotgun the next. There’s a saying: Up here you can make one mistake. The second one will kill you.” Hannah’s (The Nightingale, 2015, etc.) follow-up to her series of blockbuster bestsellers will thrill her fans with its combination of Greek tragedy, Romeo and Juliet–like coming-of-age story, and domestic potboiler. She re-creates in magical detail the lives of Alaska's homesteaders in both of the state's seasons (they really only have two) and is just as specific and authentic in her depiction of the spiritual wounds of post-Vietnam America.
A tour de force.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-312-57723-0
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Oct. 30, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2017
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.
Eleven years ago, he broke her heart. But he doesn’t know why she never forgave him.
Toggling between past and present, two love stories unfold simultaneously. In the first, Macy Sorensen meets and falls in love with the boy next door, Elliot Petropoulos, in the closet of her dad’s vacation home, where they hide out to discuss their favorite books. In the second, Macy is working as a doctor and engaged to a single father, and she hasn’t spoken to Elliot since their breakup. But a chance encounter forces her to confront the truth: what happened to make Macy stop speaking to Elliot? Ultimately, they’re separated not by time or physical remoteness but by emotional distance—Elliot and Macy always kept their relationship casual because they went to different schools. And as a teen, Macy has more to worry about than which girl Elliot is taking to the prom. After losing her mother at a young age, Macy is navigating her teenage years without a female role model, relying on the time-stamped notes her mother left in her father’s care for guidance. In the present day, Macy’s father is dead as well. She throws herself into her work and rarely comes up for air, not even to plan her upcoming wedding. Since Macy is still living with her fiance while grappling with her feelings for Elliot, the flashbacks offer steamy moments, tender revelations, and sweetly awkward confessions while Macy makes peace with her past and decides her future.
With frank language and patient plotting, this gangly teen crush grows into a confident adult love affair.Pub Date: April 10, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2801-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Jan. 22, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2018
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