Both snappy and sprawling, this psychologically sharp novel gets the details right on culture and politics, too. A fun read.
A vibrant portrait of a modern family shaped by a significant missing piece.
Rieger starts her latest with the untimely death of her powerhouse central character: Lila Pereira, the recently retired executive editor of a major Washington newspaper. Among those left with regrets is her youngest daughter, Grace, who recently published a novel that was a fictionalized version of Lila's life, including more than one troublesome variation from the official story. Whereas Lila's violently abusive father, Aldo, told his children that their mother, Zelda, died in the mental institution he packed her off to when Lila was 2, in Grace's version, "Zelina" didn't die, but escaped to start another life. Grace has also managed to wound her father, Joe, by giving the fictional mother a long-running affair with a colleague. There's one thing they all agree on, though: The IRL Lila was a washout as a mother, completely and explicitly leaving the parenting to Joe while she pursued her career. She had grown up fine without a mother; why shouldn't they? The story ping-pongs between past and present to develop these themes, with brisk storytelling and sharp dialogue making the pages fly. Rieger manages a very large cast without undue confusion: In addition to three generations of Lila and Joe's family, Grace's best friend, Ruth, is at the center of another group of characters. As in her previous book, The Heirs (2017), DNA testing eventually plays a key role. Fans of Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney's The Nest, Jenny Jackson's Pineapple Street, and Taffy Brodesser-Akner's Long Island Compromise will enjoy the complex interaction of sibling relationships, inherited money, and inherited trauma, and like the authors of those books, Rieger doesn't let the darker parts of her story get in the way of her vivacious storytelling.
Both snappy and sprawling, this psychologically sharp novel gets the details right on culture and politics, too. A fun read.Pub Date: Oct. 29, 2024
ISBN: 9780525512493
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Dial Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 14, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
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