A look at betrayal and forgiveness that nicely balances humor and depth.
A journalist and single mom unexpectedly connects with her ex-husband’s new wife and begins a duplicitous friendship.
Liz, a journalist in her late 40s, has built a pretty amazing life out of the ashes her husband created years ago when he left her for another woman. She’s moved on with her life, becoming the editor of a national newspaper column called “My Turn,” in which regular people share their touching and hilarious personal stories. She has a healthy social life, goes on lots of dates, and maintains a close relationship with her college student son. On the outside, everything looks great…but secretly, Liz’s life is a bit messy. She’s sleeping with her married boss, Seamus, despite the fact that she still can’t quite get over how her own husband betrayed her in a similar fashion. And then one day, she gets a “My Turn” submission from a familiar name—it’s Nicole Szabo, otherwise known as her ex’s current wife and the reason Liz’s family was torn apart. Without revealing her identity, Liz corresponds with Nicole, making editorial changes while also slyly finding out details about Nicole’s marriage (and even offering some advice). Liz knows that what she’s doing with Nicole and Seamus is wrong, and she tries to fix things by buying tons of self-help books with titles like Forgiveness Is a Gift You Give Yourself. But books alone can’t solve her problems, and Liz’s inability to open up to the people in her life makes her push everyone away—including friends, potential romantic prospects, and her son. When Liz reaches a breaking point, can she truly put the past behind her so she can focus on the life in front of her? Ashenburg writes candidly about a complex character who’s allowed to screw up in big ways. Liz is never shamed for wanting love, sex, or companionship, although she often goes about it the wrong way. None of the characters are written off as easy “bad guys,” not even Liz’s ex-husband or his new wife. Many of Liz’s misadventures on her journey are comically cringeworthy, such as a visit to a “cuddle party” or the dates with a poet who won’t stop talking about his bowels.
A look at betrayal and forgiveness that nicely balances humor and depth.Pub Date: Aug. 3, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-308-444-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Perennial/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
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