By turns self-congratulatory and moralistic: a lowbrow aim at smart women.
Preachy, glum debut tale of mid-40s wife and mother in the doldrums of suburban New Jersey.
Deriding the 1950s housewifery of her pampered mother, whose panacea for her Long Island depression was to have another child, middle-aged daughter Julie Berman acts out boldly in order not to behave in the same passive, nonconfrontational way in her own household with husband Eric and two almost grown children. On a visit to Palm Beach to visit her breezy, ailing parents, Julie learns that her 74-year-old mother has pancreatic cancer and has no intention of seeking treatment: “She doesn’t want any pain,” her bland father assures Julie. Then, returning home, Julie is informed that daughter Alexis, attending college upstate, wants to join the junior-year abroad program in order to be with her new love interest, young married professor Russell, and Lexie, by the way, is still a virgin. Sixteen-year-old son Jake, on the other hand, has just met a girl named Beth and lost his own virginity, in the bedroom of their home, while Julie’s supervisor at the New Jersey Suburban Sentinel is attractive, witty, single and coming on to her. Julie’s husband (a “Neanderthal”) has rather more old world ideas of protecting Lexie’s honor (Mafia style), but the parents cook up a scheme to invite charming Russell to a rollicking seder, featuring many colorful and irrepressible relatives. Russell comes, is duly insulted, balks and backs out, then writes a best-selling novel about his love for young Lexie. Borden’s prose, however, does not move this swiftly; instead, it tends to dwell and mope, unlike sleeker similar plotting by Claire Cook (Must Love Dogs, 2002: in both novels, the somewhat estranged, long-time married parents always end up happily in bed at the end). Here, the author is clearly groping for the same audience.
By turns self-congratulatory and moralistic: a lowbrow aim at smart women.Pub Date: July 5, 2005
ISBN: 1-4000-8221-8
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Shaye Areheart/Harmony
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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