Tag Archives: New York Woman

The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King (The Dark Tower)

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Synopsis:
The gunslinger steps into the lives of three different New Yorkers, and must figure out how they fit into his quest before he dies of an infection.

Review:
The contrast between The Gunslinger and The Drawing of the Three always astonishes me. As King puts it in his introduction, in book 2 of the Dark Tower series the story really takes off. I always spend the first few chapters mourning the elegiac tone of the first book, but soon am swept away by the power of King’s characterizations.

Eddie’s story always gets me, mostly because of the subtle poignancy of his relationship with his older brother Henry, the “great sage and eminent junkie.” Couple that with a drug deal plotline that takes Scarface to a supernatural plane and I just devour the first huge chunk of The Drawing of the Three. The shootout at Balazar’s is one of King’s finest sequences, expertly plotted and staged and visualized.

I slow down a bit when I get to Odetta/Detta, because King takes Detta to such an odious place that I need to look away. I can’t get too close to her. And because I know Jake is coming (though not until the next book), I end up rushing through the Jack Mort stuff. I love watching Roland work Jack Mort, giving the first hint of the diplomat that we’ll find in later books, but knowing that we’re not going to stay with Jack keeps me from getting too invested in that chunk. Reading it now, knowing the ending, I’m struck by how little of the Jack Mort stuff ends up figuring into the larger mythology. He’s pretty much just a plot device at best, filler at worst, a way for King to take a long time getting where he intends to go. I wouldn’t advocate cutting it, but I do wonder how those scenes would’ve played out had they been written closer together with the later books.

The Accidental Bestseller by Wendy Wax

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Synopsis:
When novelist Kendall Ames is dropped by her publisher and her husband, she faces a case of writer’s block so severe that her best friends–also novelists–decide to help her writer her next novel and let her take all the credit.

Review:
I’m a sucker for novels about writers, because they always get me off my butt and working on my own stuff. And of course I like good chick lit, so I was primed to enjoy The Accidental Bestseller.

The plot was a strange one. Basically, Kendall fails as a novelist so her friends help her write a book about a failed novelist whose friends help her write a book. The plot of the book within the book was never specified, thankfully sparing me from too much of a hall of mirrors effect. I wasn’t sure it would work as well as it did, but Wendy Wax pulled it off.

The Accidental Bestseller wears its influences well, from The Devil Wears Prada to Olivia Goldsmith, while retaining a charm uniquely its own. Wax packed a lot of enjoyable drama into her characters but avoided seeming too soap opera-ish. At times I wished it had pushed things a bit farther (a la Goldsmith), but by the time the ending rolled around I was more than satisfied. I hope that Wax is planning more stories with these characters, because I definitely would spend more time with them.

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Mating Rituals of the North American WASP by Lauren Lipton

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Synopsis:
Upon waking up married after a whirlwind night in Vegas, Peggy discovers that her uptight WASP “husband” might be the answer to her prayers–if only they can put up with each other for just one year.

Review:
The setup of Mating Rituals of the North American WASP couldn’t be more contrived. You’ve got a fake marriage, an aging dowager with capricious will-rewriting tendencies, and an odd couple that are so wrong for each other that they’re meant to be. The story unfolds along a predictable course, hitting the highlights and low points at just the correct intervals. In other words, this book isn’t going to change anybody’s life.

However, I really enjoyed Lipton’s characters, as well as many of the situations. As chick lit goes, it’s aiming a little deeper than most in the genre, and I have to applaud Lauren Lipton for that. Even though I knew where it was going, I still wanted to go there with the characters, and that’s saying a lot. I have a stack of half-read chick lit books that I’ve stopped reading simply because it all became so tedious. Lipton definitely got me invested in her characters and kept this jaded reader reading. So slip this one in your weekend bag–it’s worth a few hours of relaxation.

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B As In Beauty by Alberto Ferraras

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Synopsis:
Overweight B hates her life, but when she’s adopted by a fairy godmother running a most unorthodox service, she gets in touch with her outer beauty but runs the risk of losing the inner beauty she’s had all along.

Review:
I really enjoyed B as in Beauty, despite the rather tawdry story elements. Alberto Ferraras has created a winning heroine and set her against some well-imagined set pieces that are titillating but never sleazy–or, at least, B never comes off as sleazy. I really loved her voice as she takes us through her journey, and was rooting for her the whole way. The book is a light, easy, carefree read and I enjoyed spending time with it.

One little nitpick–can we have a moratorium on chick lit heroines who trip and fall and/or rip their clothes at inopportune work moments? I’m so over the clutz thing and the public embarrassment thing. You can earn sympathy for a heroine without resorting to overused devices, ‘mkay?

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Revelations by Melissa de la Cruz (Blue Bloods 3)

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Synopsis:
Half-vampire Schuyler learns more about her lineage and has a secret love affair with the twin of her nemesis, as the war between the vampire Blue Bloods and Lucifer’s army of Silver Bloods escalates.

Review:
When I signed up to review Revelations, I didn’t realize it was book 3 in a series, and I really had a hard time catching up with all of the vampire lore and the history between the characters. From what I gathered, vampires were fallen angels who mutinied against Lucifer during the war with heaven. They couldn’t be fully redeemed but were given life on earth in exchange for turning to the light. They reincarnate throughout the centuries, and each vampire has to find his or her “bond” in each cycle, so that they can re-bond in a ceremony that unleashes their powers. It’s a pretty cool mythology with a lot of potential, but since I didn’t have the backstory I had trouble wrapping my brain around the idea of “good” fallen angels–especially when they’re acting treacherously.

The main character is Schuyler, a half-vampire without a bond. She’s having a torrid affair with Jack Force, the twin and bond to Mimi, her arch-nemesis. She’s hoping that Jack will sever his bond with Mimi and choose to bond with her. Meanwhile, her best friend Bliss is having blackouts and bizarre visions of a man in a white suite. She thinks she’s going crazy and doesn’t know who to turn to. Behind all of this is the rising threat of the Silver Bloods, those fallen angels who stayed loyal to Lucifer and who want to destroy the Blue Bloods once and for all.

I had to giggle upon realizing that Schuyler and Bliss are fashion models by profession–there’s something just so perfectly decadent about that choice. The tone of the book is Gossip Girls by way of Lestat, and it’s a lot of fun.

Sexless in the City by Anna Broadway

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Synopsis:
The misadventures of a hapless twenty-something woman whose greatest fear is that she will die a virgin, and whose second greatest fear is that she’ll have sex before marriage.

Review:
I’ll let you know up front that there’s no way that I can be objective about Sexless in the City, because Anna Broadway met the woman who bought her book in my very living room. (Yes, I am Blogyenta, formerly known as Girlfriend #6.)

Reading Anna’s book was like sitting down to have a good long talk. We used to do this all the time, but then she decided that she could no longer resist the call to California, and off she went. Thankfully she’s great about keeping in touch, and made sure to come and meet Superfast Baby when she was in town a few months ago. Anna’d also honored me be asking my opinion on many a key section of the book, so there wasn’t much that was unfamiliar to me. Knowing how hard she fought to tell the truth, even when it painted her in a less than flattering light, I’m pleased to see that the end result is something of which she can be truly proud.

So congratulations, Anna! We miss you *kiss*

Sexless in the City–Win a Free Copy!

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My dear friend Anna Broadway‘s book Sexless in the City is coming out on Tuesday, April 15th.

I’m so thrilled for Anna, who met the editor who bought her book in my very living room! I’ve read some sections of it and it’s just great.

So how do you win a copy? Easy–just blog about it. Mention the soundtrack and get a second entry.

Even if you don’t win, I hope you’ll check this book out.

Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk

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Synopsis:
A headstrong Upper West Side yearns to escape her family’s Jewish Bronx origins and become a Broadway star.

Review:
This is the third or fourth time I’ve read Marjorie Morningstar, and every time I find myself absolutely riveted for the first two-thirds, then bored and indifferent for the final third, only to be knocked out by the epilogue. The book is rich with details and some astonishing set pieces–such as Seth’s bar mitzvah–but it’s hollow at the core. It’s as if author Herman Wouk gets tired of Marjorie’s adolescent angst, and all of a sudden the book puts on Mom’s high heels and pearls–and they’re just too big. Continue reading →

The Best of Everything by Rona Jaffe

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Synopsis:
3 young women meet in the typing pool at Fabian Publishing, 1952, hoping for love and finding that life has more to offer than they ever imagined.

Review:
I haven’t done much rereading since starting this blog, mostly thanks to the TBR tsunami that Bookmooch yielded out of a few boxes of discarded books my mom cleaned out of her house and sent to me. My reading life has been consumed by a tyranny of the new, but sometimes an old friend is just what I want. Continue reading →

Grub by Elise Blackwell

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Synopsis:
The trials and travails of a group of young New York City-based novelists.

Review:
Grub is a reworking of a 19th Century novel. I can’t speak to its success in that regard because I haven’t read the original, but I will say that author Elise Blackwell pulls off a rare bird: a satire brimming with humanism. I enjoyed every line of this book, which reminded me at times of Whit Stillman’s marvelous first feature Metropolitan. This is a galley I’ll be keeping, rereading, and recommending all over the place when the book comes out in stores in September.