Tuesday, December 19, 2006

"Rise and Shine," by Anna Quindlen

Bridget is a social worker in New York who has always felt in the shadow of her older sister, Meghan, a morning talk show host. Then Meghan swears at a guest on her show when she thinks her microphone is off, and suddenly her world is falling apart. The FCC launches an investigation, tabloids disregard all of her charity work and focus on the mistake, and Meghan is forced to take a suspended "vacation" from work. And her husband leaves her. She flits away to Jamaica to regain sense of her self, or some crap like that.
Okay, now let me scrape away all the "prose" that critics are harping about and lay it all out the way it really is.
Bridget: I'm a social worker, and I help women who've been abused and mistreated find help and stand up for themselves. I help families in crises. But poor me, my big sister is so popular and beautiful, I can't stand up for myself when she treats me like crap. I'm also dating an old man.
Meghan: Oh, no one understands the pressure I'm under! I'm expected to be beautiful and elegant all the time. My husband doesn't realize that everything I've done has been for him and our son. My mistake is so tragic! I must run away and ignore my son, the one sane person in this crazy world.
Yuck. The only, and I do mean only, sympathetic character in this book is Meghan's son Leo. He's bright, caring, kind, and unselfish. And because the plot is lame, and all the other characters are lousy, what does the author decide to do? Yup. Let's allow Leo to get shot by an inner city thug and become a paraplegic. Even then, the drama is all about the two sisters. It's crap. Also, for every line of dialogue, there are five paragraphs of back story or flashbacks that have absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the plot. Where the hell was this woman's editor???
2 stars, and that's only because of Leo. Poor, crippled Leo.

2 comments:

i i eee said...

Oh poor crippled Leo. haha!

Terrible!

April said...

:)

Please. Never read this book. You'll cry from the inability to reach out and smack the two sisters.