Still, the novel is suffused with a love of books and reading—each section starts with a line of poetry from a noted...
In the faded industrial town of Riverton, New Hampshire, the local library becomes a beacon for lost souls.
Journalist-author Halpern (A Dog Walks into a Nursing Home, 2013, etc.) has written a sweet if mild novel with genuine charm. Prominent among the lost souls is the librarian, Kit, 44, a sardonic, highly secretive woman trying to recover from a bad marriage. Fifteen-year-old Sunny is working at the library over the summer—court-ordered penance for stealing a dictionary—and trying to figure out her oddball parents, latter-day hippies with a secret of their own. Then there’s Rusty, 39, a one-time Wall Street high roller, down on his luck but with an improbable scheme to collect money from an old Riverton bank account that belonged to his mother. Joining in are The Four, lovable old-timers who “treated the [library] like a clubhouse.” The book meanders amiably, filling in the back stories of the central characters, until about the last third, when the narrative kicks into high gear with a death and a fire that lead to various resolutions. If the book were a TV show, you’d call it a dramedy. It’s about recovering from loss and building a family with people to whom you’re not necessarily related. There are a number of affecting moments, but there are also missteps: the big reveal—i.e., what happened with Kit’s husband—is complicated and verges on over-the-top. The last part suffers from too many teachable moments, mostly involving Kit’s overly wise shrink, Dr. Bondi. And the switching back and forth between narrators is distracting.
Still, the novel is suffused with a love of books and reading—each section starts with a line of poetry from a noted poet—and in the end, the library’s endearing denizens prove to be very good company.Pub Date: Feb. 27, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267896-6
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Perennial/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
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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