Charming, optimistic escapism with a more serious undertone of feminist solidarity.
With a smart if confused young woman as her contemporary Meg Ryan, Shook turns a lighthearted rom-com into a complicated exploration of romantic love—and, more importantly, friendship—among today’s 20-somethings.
Like the author, 25-year-old narrator Presley Fry has an androgynous name and moved from Georgia to New York after college graduation. She works as a talent-booking assistant for a popular late-night TV show, having landed the job through a connection—Susan Clark, her mother’s childhood best friend, who’s now married to a network executive. Presley lives with her best friend, Isabelle, in the East Village, which she prefers to the bougie West Village. Having survived a difficult childhood, she uses the art of witty deflection to avoid discussing uncomfortable emotions like ambivalence about her alcoholic mother, who died 18 months ago, or her attraction to a work friend. That unacknowledged attraction between smart, “plain and unnoticeable” girl and sensitive boy sets up the familiar rom-com structure, but Presley’s explanation as to why she loves Sleepless in Seattle—because her idol Nora Ephron wanted to make not merely a romantic movie but a movie about romantic movies—seems to express the author’s true intentions. Through her characters, Shook susses out romantic love in the Gen Z era: While Isabelle searches for girlfriends on Hinge, Presley prefers what she calls “business casual” with men she meets on Tinder. Male misconduct within the ambiguities of daily interaction (with shoutouts to Harvey Weinstein–level transgressors) serves as context for the plot. But other issues dominate: Presley’s intense love affair with Manhattan itself, her passionate professional ambitions, her struggle to face her imperfect mother’s role in her life. Most important here are the relationships between friends. Presley finds herself in an awkward but increasingly sweet cross-generational friendship with Susan even after Susan’s high-profile husband is outed for sexual misbehavior. And Presley puts her commitments to Isabelle before everything, even a man she may love.
Charming, optimistic escapism with a more serious undertone of feminist solidarity.Pub Date: July 9, 2024
ISBN: 978-1250904713
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: May 4, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.
The sequel to It Ends With Us (2016) shows the aftermath of domestic violence through the eyes of a single mother.
Lily Bloom is still running a flower shop; her abusive ex-husband, Ryle Kincaid, is still a surgeon. But now they’re co-parenting a daughter, Emerson, who's almost a year old. Lily won’t send Emerson to her father’s house overnight until she’s old enough to talk—“So she can tell me if something happens”—but she doesn’t want to fight for full custody lest it become an expensive legal drama or, worse, a physical fight. When Lily runs into Atlas Corrigan, a childhood friend who also came from an abusive family, she hopes their friendship can blossom into love. (For new readers, their history unfolds in heartfelt diary entries that Lily addresses to Finding Nemo star Ellen DeGeneres as she considers how Atlas was a calming presence during her turbulent childhood.) Atlas, who is single and running a restaurant, feels the same way. But even though she’s divorced, Lily isn’t exactly free. Behind Ryle’s veneer of civility are his jealousy and resentment. Lily has to plan her dates carefully to avoid a confrontation. Meanwhile, Atlas’ mother returns with shocking news. In between, Lily and Atlas steal away for romantic moments that are even sweeter for their authenticity as Lily struggles with child care, breastfeeding, and running a business while trying to find time for herself.
Through palpable tension balanced with glimmers of hope, Hoover beautifully captures the heartbreak and joy of starting over.Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-668-00122-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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