An engaging summer read, full of wit, charm, and drama.
In Cullen’s novel, three women summering in the Hamptons find their idyllic vacations to be more complicated than they’d bargained for.
In chapters told from alternating perspectives, readers come to know Megan and Courtney, two recent college graduates fleeing the fallout from their respective romantic relationships, and Nora, a newly divorced, self-made millionaire who’s reeling from the recent sale of her company. The three start off as strangers and are slowly drawn into one another’s orbits, making an unlikely but amiable trio. For much of the novel, the details of the relationships that drove Megan to accept an invitation from her former stepmother to stay in her Westhampton Beach guesthouse, and Courtney to stay with college acquaintance Alyssa, are unclear, but this mystery creates a deliciously intriguing atmosphere against the posh backdrop. Courtney finds herself increasingly alienated from Alyssa and her posse; unlike the artsy, subdued young woman she knew at school, Alyssa now cares only for partying and drugs (“I’m increasingly aware that ‘Summer Alyssa’ isn’t quite who I bargained for”). Then, Alyssa’s true focus on Courtney’s ex-boyfriend become clear. Soon enough, both Megan’s and Courtney’s relationships catch up with them, resulting in a loosely strung love triangle, malicious lies, and miscommunications. Nora’s chapters, while less immediately gripping, slowly reveal a heartwarming story as she fumbles to repair the friendships she’s neglected, strike up a relationship via a matchmaking service, and connect with her summer housemate. Cullen, the author of The Last Summer Sister (2021) enlivens a classic beach-read plot with a quick wit, a knack for drawing complicated family relationships, and contemporary flair. Each of the three main characters is fully drawn and warm; despite their flaws, readers will root for them. Alyssa is a compelling antagonist, but one wishes for more scenes with her. Supporting players are less well defined, though; bartender Tucker disappears halfway through the novel, and boyfriends exist only peripherally. However, the book’s representation of neurodivergent characters and queer relationships is well crafted and refreshing.
An engaging summer read, full of wit, charm, and drama.Pub Date: March 26, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-578-28058-5
Page Count: 324
Publisher: Lime Street Press
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2022
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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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