A timely premise feels tired in Friedland’s debut.
An Internet-addicted New York City woman quits cold turkey and relearns how to exist in the world sans smartphone.
Evie Rosen’s dependence on technology is starting to take a toll on her life. First, she humiliates herself at a friend’s wedding when her hidden BlackBerry tumbles out of her underwear. Then she loses her position as a corporate attorney seconds away from being made partner when her firm uncovers the staggering volume of personal emails that she's sent on company time. By the time she discovers on Facebook that her unattainable and anti-marriage ex-boyfriend, the famous chef Jack Kipling, has just tied the knot, she's certain that she needs to change the course of her life. After destroying her laptop by vomiting directly on it when she learns of Jack’s marriage, she dumps its remains in the Central Park Reservoir and decides to take a hiatus from the Internet. Leaving Facebook, Twitter, and her slew of dating profiles behind isn’t easy, but eventually Evie discovers a world beyond the computer, and she is determined to make connections, find a job, and hopefully snag a husband the old-fashioned way. Evie follows a thoroughly predictable course, yet she still manages to flail spectacularly along the way. The novel relies heavily on stock characters who stubbornly refuse to stray from their assigned roles: Grandma Bette, the meddling grandmother who reminds Evie of her pending mortality while questioning her about marriage prospects; Dr. Edward Gold, the handsome and brilliant doctor chosen by Bette to perform her lumpectomy and hopefully fall in love with her granddaughter; Aunt Susan, a sloppily dressed aging hippie with body odor and Birkenstock sandals; a plethora of friends who inhabit the various niche roles of Manhattan’s elite.
A timely premise feels tired in Friedland’s debut.Pub Date: May 12, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-237984-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.
Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.
Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s (I Found You, 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.
Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.Pub Date: April 24, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018
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
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