Jane Austen—nay, Helen Fielding—she isn’t.
Bestselling Brit serves up a frothy Bridget Jones–like account of a fashion-savvy newlywed faced with a monster-in-law whose bark is worse than her bite.
Ellie Black is a perfectly fulfilled, self-sufficient, single woman, thank you very much. Head of marketing at a chain of hip, Ian Schrager–esque UK hotels, she shops the designer racks of London’s Soho, albeit only on sale days. But when blissfully bland TV producer Dan Cooper pops the question, things progress breezily from engagement to wedding to unplanned pregnancy to birth of bouncing baby. Predictably, the other woman of the title turns out to be Dan’s mum, Linda (perfunctory Oedipal undertones alluded to if not included). Despite the endless wrongs Linda commits (paying for the wedding! presents galore for her newborn grandson! heirloom diamond earrings!), none seems to warrant our narrator’s consuming hatred—that is, until a baby-dropping incident in France that’s so abhorrent as to make the eventual reconciliation between mother and daughter-in-law seem even less justifiable. Then again, Green lets inconsistencies abound. The pop-psych explanation for Ellie’s fear of abandonment (one never actually exhibited, since marital separation yields the requisite tear down the cheek, new outfits, and a date with a hunky bachelor) is that her own alcoholic mother was killed while drunk-driving when Ellie was 13. She becomes an avowed teenage teetotaler: “I discovered boys, and dope, and parties. Not drink, though . . . .” Why then the recurrent hankerings for a cocktail (“I could do with some dancing, and . . . I could certainly do with some drinking”; “Oh, why did I have so many vodkas last night?”)? And when it comes to female friendships, Ellie switches allegiances faster than Renee Zellweger morphs from a size 2 to a 12. The reader is merely apathetic witness to it all.
Jane Austen—nay, Helen Fielding—she isn’t.Pub Date: March 7, 2005
ISBN: 0-718-14635-2
Page Count: 390
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2005
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.
Passion, friendship, heartbreak, and forgiveness ring true in Lovering's debut, the tale of a young woman's obsession with a man who's "good at being charming."
Long Island native Lucy Albright, starts her freshman year at Baird College in Southern California, intending to study English and journalism and become a travel writer. Stephen DeMarco, an upperclassman, is a political science major who plans to become a lawyer. Soon after they meet, Lucy tells Stephen an intensely personal story about the Unforgivable Thing, a betrayal that turned Lucy against her mother. Stephen pretends to listen to Lucy's painful disclosure, but all his thoughts are about her exposed black bra strap and her nipples pressing against her thin cotton T-shirt. It doesn't take Lucy long to realize Stephen's a "manipulative jerk" and she is "beyond pathetic" in her desire for him, but their lives are now intertwined. Their story takes seven years to unfold, but it's a fast-paced ride through hookups, breakups, and infidelities fueled by alcohol and cocaine and with oodles of sizzling sexual tension. "Lucy was an itch, a song stuck in your head or a movie you need to rewatch or a food you suddenly crave," Stephen says in one of his point-of-view chapters, which alternate with Lucy's. The ending is perfect, as Lucy figures out the dark secret Stephen has kept hidden and learns the difference between lustful addiction and mature love.
There are unforgettable beauties in this very sexy story.Pub Date: June 12, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5011-6964-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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