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3.36 AVERAGE
3.36 AVERAGE
I previously read Jennifer Close's Girls in White Dresses (Vintage Contemporaries) and loved it and was happy to pick up her second novel, "The Smart One".
"The Smart One" focuses on the Coffey family living in Philadelphia. The matriarch, Weezy Coffey and her husband Will have raised three children, Martha, Claire, and Max. We find that all of the Coffey children are in some form of arrested development and due to events that Ms. Close details in the novel, all of them end up back in their family's home while readers get to experience the family's ups and downs that transpire throughout one year.
I did love this novel since it really does not just focus on Weezy thought he book synopsis initially made me think that it did. Jennifer Close alternates chapters by focusing on Weezy, Martha, Claire, and Max's girlfriend Cleo. I like that all of the women in the novel were either seen as the smart ones, (Weezy and Martha) or the pretty ones (Claire and Cleo) though none of them saw themselves that way.
I also liked that Ms. Close would have all four of these characters discussing the same event, like Thanksgiving dinner in their own individual chapters so it was a nice way to see how four different people interpreted the same event.
In addition, the other characters in the novel, Will, Max, grandmom Betts, and Weezy's sister Maureen, were written quite well too and I wish that we could have gotten a glimpse into these character's heads as well.
I would hope that Ms. Close has a follow up to this novel just so we can see how the Coffey family is doing.
I highly recommend this novel.
I received this novel for free via the Amazon Vine Program.
"The Smart One" focuses on the Coffey family living in Philadelphia. The matriarch, Weezy Coffey and her husband Will have raised three children, Martha, Claire, and Max. We find that all of the Coffey children are in some form of arrested development and due to events that Ms. Close details in the novel, all of them end up back in their family's home while readers get to experience the family's ups and downs that transpire throughout one year.
I did love this novel since it really does not just focus on Weezy thought he book synopsis initially made me think that it did. Jennifer Close alternates chapters by focusing on Weezy, Martha, Claire, and Max's girlfriend Cleo. I like that all of the women in the novel were either seen as the smart ones, (Weezy and Martha) or the pretty ones (Claire and Cleo) though none of them saw themselves that way.
I also liked that Ms. Close would have all four of these characters discussing the same event, like Thanksgiving dinner in their own individual chapters so it was a nice way to see how four different people interpreted the same event.
In addition, the other characters in the novel, Will, Max, grandmom Betts, and Weezy's sister Maureen, were written quite well too and I wish that we could have gotten a glimpse into these character's heads as well.
I would hope that Ms. Close has a follow up to this novel just so we can see how the Coffey family is doing.
I highly recommend this novel.
I received this novel for free via the Amazon Vine Program.
This is kind of an odd book. It's just the story of a family. Nothing special about them: broken engagement, accidental pregnancy, changing jobs, friends, sisters...It is well written and the story has a nice flow, if it's just a little morose. There really wasn't much of a climax since you get the impression the rest of the story just continues on without you. It was weird. But good enough.
I loved Girls in White Dresses, but this one didn't really pick up for me until nearly the end. Not awful, not great..a pleasant enough read. I do like that her characters seem to be more like real people - not freaky-perfect people that tend to appear on the pages of fiction.
From The Book Wheel.
People say that one of the reasons that Sex and the City did so well is because every woman could relate to every character. We all have a little bit of Charlotte, Samantha, Carrie, and Miranda in us, even if we don’t like to admit it. This is the exact same reason that I adored The Smart One by Jennifer Close. I could relate to each and every one of the main characters on some level, even if i didn’t want to admit it.
First we have Claire, who plunged herself into so much debt after her engagement ended that she had to move home to pay it off. While home, she reverts back to her teenage self and picks up with a high school crush who is living in his basement. Then we have Martha (age 30) simply never left the house and gave up nursing to work at J. Crew. Lastly, we have Max, a college senior who’s forced to move home with his pregnant girlfriend, Cleo, who no one knows he’s been living with. Put them all together under the same roof again and it’s like living with teenagers all over again, only much more entertaining.
You might be asking yourself how I could relate to all of these characters, so I’ll tell you. Like Claire, I moved home in my mid-20′s to save money, and like Martha, I spent a few too many years in retail. Granted, I’ve never brought home a pregnant girlfriend, but I can empathize nonetheless. And while I don’t have kids, I can absolutely see my own fantastic mother welcoming home all four of her children as adults and then wishing that we’d get it together. Luckily for her, this hasn’t happened. Yet.
For the full review, click here.
People say that one of the reasons that Sex and the City did so well is because every woman could relate to every character. We all have a little bit of Charlotte, Samantha, Carrie, and Miranda in us, even if we don’t like to admit it. This is the exact same reason that I adored The Smart One by Jennifer Close. I could relate to each and every one of the main characters on some level, even if i didn’t want to admit it.
First we have Claire, who plunged herself into so much debt after her engagement ended that she had to move home to pay it off. While home, she reverts back to her teenage self and picks up with a high school crush who is living in his basement. Then we have Martha (age 30) simply never left the house and gave up nursing to work at J. Crew. Lastly, we have Max, a college senior who’s forced to move home with his pregnant girlfriend, Cleo, who no one knows he’s been living with. Put them all together under the same roof again and it’s like living with teenagers all over again, only much more entertaining.
You might be asking yourself how I could relate to all of these characters, so I’ll tell you. Like Claire, I moved home in my mid-20′s to save money, and like Martha, I spent a few too many years in retail. Granted, I’ve never brought home a pregnant girlfriend, but I can empathize nonetheless. And while I don’t have kids, I can absolutely see my own fantastic mother welcoming home all four of her children as adults and then wishing that we’d get it together. Luckily for her, this hasn’t happened. Yet.
For the full review, click here.
I felt like nothing really happened in this book. But yet for some reason I didn’t want to stop reading it.
I wasn't sure about The Smart One when I started reading it. Claire and Martha, Weezy's daughters, weren't characters I really liked or could really relate too. Both of them were clearly depressed (not clinically, just in a "life is hard" way) and there wasn't much joy in their life - which ironically, made them a bit judgmental.
But then we get to Cleo - and that's when I got really hooked into the novel. I guess it shows my current passion for YA fiction, since Cleo is the youngest of the girls. Still in college, she is the girlfriend of the youngest child in the family, Max. She wasn't perfect, either, keeping people at a distance and being slightly impulsive; but she also seemed to have a big heart and a head on her shoulders, so I was immediately drawn to her character.
I found it interesting that the author chose to write from the point of view of Cleo rather than Max. She's not part of the family, exactly; Weezy finds her too beautiful for her son (she will obviously break his heart!) and the sisters are sort of intimidated by her and a little bit distant. She's only the college girlfriend, after all! But having the narration telling her side of the story was very interesting. First, because it offered a different appreciation of the family, and second, because it made The Smart One less about family, and more about the different relationships between sisters, women, mothers and daughters. The men in the story are, in fact, very secondary to them all.
I think that, from the cover and the summary, I expected something a little lighter. It's a pleasant surprise though that Jennifer Close gave complexity to her characters. I do wish all of their anxieties would have been balanced by a few more happier or funnier moments. The book was surprisingly... cynical, I guess? For instance, I was expecting Claire to heal and get into a huge romance, but instead, she spends most of her time with a divorced guy who lives in his parents' basement. So the book was definitely more realistic, and less "romantic fantasy".
In the end, The Smart One was a pleasant read, even though its characters weren't always so pleasant (but that's life, too!) I think many women and young women could relate to the book, whether they are mothers, sisters, daughters - or a little of each.
But then we get to Cleo - and that's when I got really hooked into the novel. I guess it shows my current passion for YA fiction, since Cleo is the youngest of the girls. Still in college, she is the girlfriend of the youngest child in the family, Max. She wasn't perfect, either, keeping people at a distance and being slightly impulsive; but she also seemed to have a big heart and a head on her shoulders, so I was immediately drawn to her character.
I found it interesting that the author chose to write from the point of view of Cleo rather than Max. She's not part of the family, exactly; Weezy finds her too beautiful for her son (she will obviously break his heart!) and the sisters are sort of intimidated by her and a little bit distant. She's only the college girlfriend, after all! But having the narration telling her side of the story was very interesting. First, because it offered a different appreciation of the family, and second, because it made The Smart One less about family, and more about the different relationships between sisters, women, mothers and daughters. The men in the story are, in fact, very secondary to them all.
I think that, from the cover and the summary, I expected something a little lighter. It's a pleasant surprise though that Jennifer Close gave complexity to her characters. I do wish all of their anxieties would have been balanced by a few more happier or funnier moments. The book was surprisingly... cynical, I guess? For instance, I was expecting Claire to heal and get into a huge romance, but instead, she spends most of her time with a divorced guy who lives in his parents' basement. So the book was definitely more realistic, and less "romantic fantasy".
In the end, The Smart One was a pleasant read, even though its characters weren't always so pleasant (but that's life, too!) I think many women and young women could relate to the book, whether they are mothers, sisters, daughters - or a little of each.
I didn't love the story, but the writing was good enough that I kept reading anyway. That's pretty unusual these days. More often I'm slugging through bad writing to see what happens with the story.