A timely premise feels tired in Friedland’s debut.
An Internet-addicted New York City woman quits cold turkey and relearns how to exist in the world sans smartphone.
Evie Rosen’s dependence on technology is starting to take a toll on her life. First, she humiliates herself at a friend’s wedding when her hidden BlackBerry tumbles out of her underwear. Then she loses her position as a corporate attorney seconds away from being made partner when her firm uncovers the staggering volume of personal emails that she's sent on company time. By the time she discovers on Facebook that her unattainable and anti-marriage ex-boyfriend, the famous chef Jack Kipling, has just tied the knot, she's certain that she needs to change the course of her life. After destroying her laptop by vomiting directly on it when she learns of Jack’s marriage, she dumps its remains in the Central Park Reservoir and decides to take a hiatus from the Internet. Leaving Facebook, Twitter, and her slew of dating profiles behind isn’t easy, but eventually Evie discovers a world beyond the computer, and she is determined to make connections, find a job, and hopefully snag a husband the old-fashioned way. Evie follows a thoroughly predictable course, yet she still manages to flail spectacularly along the way. The novel relies heavily on stock characters who stubbornly refuse to stray from their assigned roles: Grandma Bette, the meddling grandmother who reminds Evie of her pending mortality while questioning her about marriage prospects; Dr. Edward Gold, the handsome and brilliant doctor chosen by Bette to perform her lumpectomy and hopefully fall in love with her granddaughter; Aunt Susan, a sloppily dressed aging hippie with body odor and Birkenstock sandals; a plethora of friends who inhabit the various niche roles of Manhattan’s elite.
A timely premise feels tired in Friedland’s debut.Pub Date: May 12, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-06-237984-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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