A beautiful exploration of both grief and romance starring a lovably hilarious heroine.
Desperate for a baby, a single woman attempts to find a partner through a website for potential co-parents—but when feelings develop, things get complicated.
Lucie Yi knows she wants a child, but her journey to parenthood has been bumpy. After having a miscarriage, she suffers another devastating blow when her boyfriend cheats on her. She flees Singapore to work in New York City, where she can deal with her grief far away from reminders of her old life. But with her biological clock ticking louder and louder, Lucie knows she needs to act fast if she wants the baby she’s always dreamed of. The dating pool isn’t offering any potential fathers, but then she discovers Co-Family.com, a platform that one of her friends describes as “Tinder for would-be parents.” A platonic co-parenting situation is just what Lucie wants—she can’t deal with another heartbreak. When she meets Collin, she knows he’ll make the perfect father for her child. He’s willing to move to Singapore, where she wants to raise their child, and best of all, she doesn’t have any pesky feelings for him. But when she gets pregnant and they make the move back to her home country, things get complicated. Because of the intense social stigma around unwed mothers in Singapore, Lucie and Collin have to tell her parents that they’re going to get married. And then Lucie’s cheating ex, Mark, shows up. He claims he’s changed and wants to be together, but spending so much time with Collin has made Lucie realize that she might want other things. Should Lucie take the unconventional path with Collin and risk screwing up their platonic co-parenting situation, or should she fall into the safe comfort of Mark’s arms? Ho delicately balances grief, romance, and humor. There are many laugh-out-loud lines (including Lucie’s thoughts as her body changes during pregnancy), but Lucie’s sorrow over what she lost—both a baby and her imagined future—always rings true. This is best shown in a particularly touching scene in which Lucie attends a support group for grieving parents.
A beautiful exploration of both grief and romance starring a lovably hilarious heroine.Pub Date: June 21, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-42226-7
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: March 24, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.
A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.
When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.
A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781250178633
Page Count: 480
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
BOOK TO SCREEN
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of...
Hoover’s (November 9, 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.
At first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers; Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. The provocative opening takes a dark turn when Lily receives a warning about Ryle’s intentions from his sister, who becomes Lily’s employee and close friend. Lily swears she’ll never end up in another abusive home, but when Ryle starts to show all the same warning signs that her mother ignored, Lily learns just how hard it is to say goodbye. When Ryle is not in the throes of a jealous rage, his redeeming qualities return, and Lily can justify his behavior: “I think we needed what happened on the stairwell to happen so that I would know his past and we’d be able to work on it together,” she tells herself. Lily marries Ryle hoping the good will outweigh the bad, and the mother-daughter dynamics evolve beautifully as Lily reflects on her childhood with fresh eyes. Diary entries fancifully addressed to TV host Ellen DeGeneres serve as flashbacks to Lily’s teenage years, when she met her first love, Atlas Corrigan, a homeless boy she found squatting in a neighbor’s house. When Atlas turns up in Boston, now a successful chef, he begs Lily to leave Ryle. Despite the better option right in front of her, an unexpected complication forces Lily to cut ties with Atlas, confront Ryle, and try to end the cycle of abuse before it’s too late. The relationships are portrayed with compassion and honesty, and the author’s note at the end that explains Hoover’s personal connection to the subject matter is a must-read.
Packed with riveting drama and painful truths, this book powerfully illustrates the devastation of abuse—and the strength of the survivors.Pub Date: Aug. 2, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5011-1036-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2016
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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