Ambitious but unconvincing mix of uplift, tragedy and cartoonish satire.
Debut novelist Gibson attempts to combine a snarky lampoon of super and nouveau riche cultural striving with a heartfelt coming-of-age story. She throws in a metafictional critique of metafiction for good measure.
In the Long Island, N.Y., town of Fox Glen, the wealthy, generally doltish residents vie to show how highbrow they are. So it’s not much of a stretch when a sweetly boorish bra-manufacturing magnate and his cartoonishly cold wife hire a writer to create a book for their daughter Carley’s sweet-sixteen party. The book will be a cultural coup. Besides, Carley’s teachers have complained about her lack of intellect, and Carley’s parents hope that involving her in the writing will prove motivating. Overweight Carley hates books and has few friends except Hunter—a big exception since he’s the most popular boy in the high school. A handsome if sickly lothario who drinks to serious excess when he isn’t reading or working on his application essay for Princeton, Hunter considers Carley his best friend and depends on her for all his platonic emotional needs. Her feelings are less platonic, and she repeatedly forgives him for behaving badly under the influence. Bree, the starving author of a novel, is hired to write Carley’s book, thanks to Justin, a famous writer living in Fox Glen seclusion since a fan attacked him. Justin knew Bree in college, treated her badly and has been secretly atoning every since. As Justin and Bree skirt around their relationship, they genuinely try to help Carley, but Carley cannot face that Hunter’s addiction to alcohol and drugs is becoming worse. The drunken scenes, the acting outs and the apologies repeat themselves in various forms until the reader loses track. Hunter’s downward spiral is offset by various witticisms surrounding Carley’s SAT vocabulary malapropisms; the excessively obnoxious behavior of various parents and rich friends; and Bree, Justin and Hunter’s literary debates.
Ambitious but unconvincing mix of uplift, tragedy and cartoonish satire.Pub Date: May 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-525-95114-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2009
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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