A fun, frothy read bolstered by a likable heroine and a snappy, fast-paced narrative.
A single mother embarks on an unconventional business venture in Doyle’s debut novel.
Amanda Keane loves her life in Chicago and her career as an editor at Fixtures magazine. For her 30th birthday, her friends treat her to an evening at Daly’s, a local bar and restaurant, with a blind date. However, the sparks truly fly when she meets Eamonn, the restaurant owner’s nephew. He’s an aspiring musician from Ireland who’s spending several months in the Windy City. But when Amanda discovers she’s pregnant with Eamonn’s child, he disappears from her life. Shortly after the birth of their daughter, Maddie, she loses her job at the magazine. When her friend Joy, a gynecologist, suggests that she try working as a wet nurse for wealthy mothers, she’s initially skeptical. However, with a baby to support and bills to pay, she does so, working on a contract basis for some of the most powerful women in town. Because of the sensitive nature of her services, Amanda keeps the true nature of her job a secret from her new boyfriend, Dan, a handsome single father she met at Maddie’s day care. Amanda’s attempts to balance her work and her blossoming romance are soon complicated by the demands of her job and the reappearance of a person from her past. Doyle brings a quirky premise to life with colorful characters and a brisk pace. The bright Amanda is the strongest player here; although she’s occasionally naïve when it comes to romance, her resourcefulness enables her to navigate the secret lives of Chicago’s elite. Doyle also establishes a nice contrast between the men in Amanda’s life: Eamonn is a charming louse who appeals to Amanda’s fantasy of dating a sensitive musician, while Dan and his son, Lucas, provide a strong sense of stability. Amanda’s employers all come from diverse backgrounds, but each harbors intriguing secrets. As Amanda’s journey takes her from the world of magazine journalism to the world of wealth, Doyle’s pacing never misses a beat.
A fun, frothy read bolstered by a likable heroine and a snappy, fast-paced narrative.Pub Date: Nov. 21, 2014
ISBN: 978-0985352080
Page Count: 308
Publisher: Simon and Fig
Review Posted Online: Feb. 27, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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