Gaskell has mastered the art of putting the fun in dysfunctional.
Gaskell's novel invites readers to monthly dinner parties featuring mouthwatering menus and a group of guests dealing not so well with various relationship issues.
Fran’s husband, Will, would rather work on his action-figure robots in the garage than listen to her concerns. Despite his distraction, Will does seem aware that Fran’s parenting skills are in need of improvement. Fran is terribly disturbed that her surly teenage daughter spends a small fortune on designer sunglasses to keep up appearances with the rich girls she attends private school with, but she then expects Will to repaint the living room, replace a kitchen counter and do major landscaping projects to impress their friends the next time they host the meeting of their monthly dinner club. Clearly, she is unaware that teaching by example trumps controlling by ultimatum. Jaime’s husband, Mark, would rather go to tennis tournaments to watch his snotty teenage daughter from a first marriage than help Jaime care for their two young children. This obsession makes Jaime think that perhaps Mark is having an affair with the tennis coach. While right about the affair, she is wrong about with whom. Audrey, childless and widowed at a young age, would rather get a dog than date the men her friends keep trying to set her up with. Nonetheless, she finds herself feeling hot and bothered in the presence of Will’s sexy single friend, Coop. Only Leland, the old widower from down the block, seems grounded and secure. Physically frail, Leland has a strong spirit, a ready sense of humor and often offers insightful advice on life before he dies. A series of dramatic crises force the dinner club members to confront their own flaws and work on their lives. All the characters at different times compare their lives to various contemporary TV shows and this book, chapter by chapter, could easily be transposed to serial episodes of a TV sitcom.
Gaskell has mastered the art of putting the fun in dysfunctional.Pub Date: April 23, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-553-38628-8
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...
Sisters in and out of love.
Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?
Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.Pub Date: May 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-345-45073-6
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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