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A review by bethreadsandnaps
The Smart One by Jennifer Close
4.0
I really enjoyed this novel and will read Jennifer Close's other book.
Loving, needs-to-be needed matriarch Weezy welcomes her twenty-something/early thirties children as well as her son's girlfriend back to her home. Weezy and her sister Maureen have a semi-strained relationship, and history repeats itself with Weezy's daughters Claire and Martha.
While it wasn't technically ever stated, it seems as if daughter Martha has Asperger's; her life is very rigid, she doesn't make friends, she's never had a relationship. So rarely do you get to see a character portrayed with Asperger's, particularly a female in the chick lit genre. That was a refreshing character choice. You could see the mother in the daughter, which was another careful character choice by the author.
Each of the female characters is doing the best she can with what she has. Each has flaws, but they are forgivable flaws - no tragic flaws in this novel. Perhaps it is the hardest to bond with Elizabeth, but she's not a main character anyway.
The strengths of the novel are that the characters are incredibly human, they are good people, and there are strands of incredible truth woven throughout the book.
A gnawing frustration is that we don't learn any of the male perspectives. It's almost like the males are treated as pieces of furniture. I found that the pacing was slightly off. The first 150 pages seemed very engaging and then the book seemed to fumble around. Time sped up at that point in the novel, and it seemed like the story came a summary of what each character did each month.
Loving, needs-to-be needed matriarch Weezy welcomes her twenty-something/early thirties children as well as her son's girlfriend back to her home. Weezy and her sister Maureen have a semi-strained relationship, and history repeats itself with Weezy's daughters Claire and Martha.
While it wasn't technically ever stated, it seems as if daughter Martha has Asperger's; her life is very rigid, she doesn't make friends, she's never had a relationship. So rarely do you get to see a character portrayed with Asperger's, particularly a female in the chick lit genre. That was a refreshing character choice. You could see the mother in the daughter, which was another careful character choice by the author.
Each of the female characters is doing the best she can with what she has. Each has flaws, but they are forgivable flaws - no tragic flaws in this novel. Perhaps it is the hardest to bond with Elizabeth, but she's not a main character anyway.
The strengths of the novel are that the characters are incredibly human, they are good people, and there are strands of incredible truth woven throughout the book.
A gnawing frustration is that we don't learn any of the male perspectives. It's almost like the males are treated as pieces of furniture. I found that the pacing was slightly off. The first 150 pages seemed very engaging and then the book seemed to fumble around. Time sped up at that point in the novel, and it seemed like the story came a summary of what each character did each month.