Although the author’s attempts to inject humor into every situation may grind on some readers’ nerves, many fans of this...
A wisecracking reporter sometimes can be downright annoying in Tanabe’s debut chick-lit offering.
Adrienne Brown, a 28-year-old graduate of Wellesley College, has spent the requisite time living in New York City and working her way up the journalistic ladder at a glossy publication. When she decides it’s time for a change, she applies for a position at the Capitolist, the hottest print publication and website in Washington, D.C. Although she takes a pay cut as a style reporter, works 14-hour days and lives in an apartment over her parents’ barn, more than an hour’s commute away, Adrienne’s irreverent humor gets her through each day. She quips her way through celebrity-filled parties, including the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, where she verbally spears a celebrity or two and learns that the man of her dreams is married to a colleague: snotty political reporter Olivia Campo. Not only does Olivia seem to receive preferential treatment by the boss, her gorgeous hunk of a husband is devoted to her and they reside in a beautiful home in a desirable section of the city. When Adrienne discovers Olivia’s having an affair with a very married senator, she’s on it like a dog on a bone. The enterprising reporter snaps some extremely racy photos and then vacillates back and forth trying to decide whether to break the story or sit on it. More information comes to light when Adrienne enlists the help of her equally witty older sister, and they uncover details that are more far-reaching than Adrienne at first thought. A former political and celebrity reporter, Tanabe’s plot contains everything a die-hard chick-lit fan could want: plenty of fluff, sibling rivalry, deceit and intrigue, and a spunky heroine.
Although the author’s attempts to inject humor into every situation may grind on some readers’ nerves, many fans of this genre will find it appealing.Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4516-9559-5
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Washington Square/Pocket
Review Posted Online: Oct. 14, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2012
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.
Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.
The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.
Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.Pub Date: July 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250217-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1993
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
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