Review by Booklist Review
Tyler (French Braid, 2022) is exceptionally adept at exhilarating dialogue and the nuances of relationships. Like many of her other Baltimore-set novels, this delectable, tightly focused, and piquant comedy portrays a family whose alliances and conflicts are set to boil during the heat of a special occasion. It begins with a duel between the tightly wound protagonist, Gail, age 61, and her boss, who seems to be trying to edge Gail out, suggesting that she might long for a change. Gail thinks, "I am not the kind of woman who dreams of doing things." Now she's angry, as well as anxious about her daughter's wedding. Then Max, her ex-husband, arrives uninvited with a cat. As the wedding veers toward disaster, Gail wonders "how it was that anyone on earth found the courage to marry." During those fateful June days delicately laced with funny and poignant moments, hidden aspects of Gail and Max's unconventional natures, marriage, and divorce are revealed to profound effect. With every character, cat included, incisively and vividly realized, and myriad preoccupations and emotions limned with nimble wit and empathy, this is a keen delight.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Tyler's fan base is rock-solid, but as word gets out, all fiction lovers seeking a smart, sunny novel will ask for this one.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Bestseller Tyler (French Braid) returns with another appealing story of an idiosyncratic family. The day before her only daughter's wedding, 61-year-old Gail Baines learns she's been passed over for a promotion at the private girls' school where she works as assistant headmistress, and that she'll soon be replaced. That afternoon, her mild-mannered ex-husband, Max, shows up at her door with a cat he's fostering, having been turned away by their daughter, Debbie, because her fiancé, Kenneth, is allergic to cats. Then Debbie tells Gail that Kenneth's unreliable sister, Elizabeth, has just claimed he had a recent fling with another woman. Debbie isn't sure if she believes Elizabeth, but Gail panics nonetheless. Still, the wedding proceeds as planned. The next day, Gail's flashbacks to her marriage with Max lead to a surprising revelation. As in Tyler's previous work, there's not much of a plot, but the pleasure is in learning how her characters tick, as Gail time and again fails to find the proper tact. By the end of the story, messy human relationships are proven to be worth all the trouble they cause. This will gratify Tyler's fans. Agent: Jesseca Salky, Salky Literary. (Feb.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
Their daughter's wedding stirs up uncomfortable memories for a divorced couple. The day before the ceremony, the bride's mother, Gail Baines, second in command at the Ashton School in Baltimore, learns that not only has she been passed over to replace the retiring headmistress, but the new recruit is bringing her deputy with her. The lack of people skills that have cost Gail this promotion are evident even in that initial scene; she's a classic cranky Tyler protagonist, given to blurting out her opinions with little consideration for others' feelings. Her first-person narration also reveals her to be touchingly vulnerable, convinced that daughter Debbie, prettier and more polished than she, will inevitably prefer husband-to-be Kenneth's overbearing, better-off parents. Although her divorce from Max was amicable, Gail considers him a bit of a slacker, and isn't best pleased when he turns up with a rescue cat in tow and says he has to stay with her because Kenneth is horribly allergic. A startling revelation from Debbie, fresh from her pre-wedding "Day of Beauty," immediately divides the exes, who have very different opinions about how their daughter should handle this crisis. It also leads to Gail's revelation of the infidelity that led to their divorce, though not in the way readers might imagine. Laid-back Max is the only fully fleshed character here other than Gail, and the novel is very short, but Tyler's touch is as delicate, her empathy for human beings and all their quirks as evident in her 25th work of fiction as it was in her first, published an astonishing 60 years ago. Gail's acerbic observations about the wedding and all its participants, her wistful memories of her odd-couple romance with Max, and her account of their enforced intimacy over the three days surrounding the wedding alternate to poignant effect. The closing pages offer a happy ending that feels true to the characters and utterly deserved. Sweet, sharp, and satisfying. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
