Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* The author of Love the One You're With (2008) once again tackles the subject of infidelity in a novel told in alternating chapters by the wronged wife and the other woman. Tessa Russo is celebrating her wedding anniversary with her handsome husband, Nick, a pediatric plastic surgeon, when his pager goes off. At the hospital, he meets his new patient, six-year-old Charlie, who has been badly burned while roasting s'mores. Charlie's mother, Valerie, a high-powered lawyer who has raised Charlie on her own, is wracked with guilt. As Charlie goes through various grafts and surgeries to repair the damage done to his face and hand, Nick and Valerie become close. Tessa, a stay-at-home mom who has misgivings about leaving her professorship, recognizes the distance growing between her and Nick but isn't sure what to attribute it to or what to do about it. The premise is a familiar one, but Giffin injects freshness by getting inside both Tessa's and Valerie's heads and by making both sympathetic, fleshed-out characters. Giffin's talent lies in making her characters believable and relatable, and readers will be enthralled by this layered, absorbing novel.--Huntley, Kristine Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Giffin's latest is disappointing on all counts. Nick Russo is a pediatric plastic surgeon; his wife, Tessa (sister of Dex, from Something Borrowed), is a professor turned stay-at-home mom living a cushy life in Boston. Nick is called in to care for a six-year-old burn victim, and Nick's devotion to his work is soon tangled up in his attraction to the boy's mother, Valerie, a single attorney. Narrated in turn by personality-free Tessa and one-dimensional Valerie, it takes Giffin an inordinate number of pages to deal with the book's only plot line-will they or won't they, and, if they do, will Tessa forgive him? It's unclear what Nick finds so unsatisfying in his marriage that might tempt him to adultery, and neither Tessa nor Valerie is complex enough to sustain interest. Longtime fans will enjoy the cameos, but newcomers will be better off with one of Giffin's earlier, better works. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Giffin's fifth novel, following Love the One You're With (2008), also available from Macmillan Audio and BBC Audiobooks America; simultaneous release with the St. Martin's hc (1.3 million-copy first printing); Cynthia Nixon, who previously narrated Giffin's Baby Proof (2007) for Macmillan, reads. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
