Niederhoffer’s follow-up to the clever A Taxonomy of Barnacles (2005), while gracefully written, never soars above the...
Romantic complications abound when a close-knit group of Yale graduates assemble in Maine for the lavish wedding of two members of their clique.
Darkly attractive, intelligent and complicated, Laura Rosen has reason to dread the nuptials of her golden-girl “best friend” Lila Hayes. After all, she is madly in love with the groom. Laura and Tom McDevon dated before he and Lila did, remaining close until his engagement. His choice of the beautiful but shallow Lila over the considerably more compatible Laura seems like a cop-out, motivated by Lila’s wealth and breeding more than true love. Still, duty (and a little hope) compels Laura to head out to the Hayes family’s coastal Maine compound so she can act as maid of honor for her former college roommate. Once there she is joined by six other members of her Yale class, who have conveniently paired off in monogamous couples, leaving Laura as the single Jew in a sea of WASPs. After an interminable rehearsal dinner all the pals, minus Lila, head out for a drunken frolic on a raft in the bay. The revelers somehow end up unmoored, and after swimming back to shore discover that Tom is missing. Worried that the gifted athlete might have gotten cold feet—or drowned—they all separate into pairs to look for him, choosing partners other than their usual mates. The rest of the night passes with drink-and-drug-fueled excesses, hook-ups and the usual personal revelations, as well as a ghostly sighting. Laura, who never really explains why she has remained friends with this gossipy crew, also fights off the advances of Lila’s younger brother Chip and makes a discovery about Tom that changes everything.
Niederhoffer’s follow-up to the clever A Taxonomy of Barnacles (2005), while gracefully written, never soars above the dislikable characters and the dated depiction of blue-blood customs.Pub Date: July 1, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-312-37337-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2008
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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