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Loading... Cure for Modern Life, The (edition 2008)by Lisa Tucker, Scott Brick (Reader)
Work InformationThe Cure for Modern Life by Lisa Tucker
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. I spotted this book as a used book sale and was drawn in because of the cover. The summary didn't REALLY seem like my kind of book, but I decided to step outside my comfort zone, and I'm glad I did. Not the most amazing book, but there's something about it that just captivated me. Well worth the read. ( ) Not a bad book, but probably could've been better. Matthew is a power-hungry single guy. Ben is his genius best friend. Amelia had a prior relationship with Matthew, then several years later, hooked up with Ben. Matthew & Amelia no longer like or respect each other. In the meantime, Matthew happens upon a young kid & his younger sister, children of a junkie mom, and an interesting sort of relationship develops there. I rarely despise a character as much as I did Amelia in this story. I disliked her from the outset, and the author's attempt to make her likeable in the last few pages of the book did nothing to salvage that for me. Matthew & Ben weren't particularly likeable either, but somehow they were more bearable than Amelia. The plotline of this story was somewhat original, and I liked that about it, but I can't say I found the ending very satisfying or believable. Beach Read, woo-hoo! I like buying light reading in the summer; somehow calling them "beach reads" makes me feel less of a light-weight. Matthew, Ben and Amelia have been friends/lovers/enemies/frienemies since college; Matthew and Amelia even planned to get married once, before her hatred of Matthew's job with a big pharmaceutical company demolished the relationship. Now Ben and Amelia are in love, and Matthew is planning to use their relationship to shelter his pet drug, Galavan, from Amelia's public attacks on his company. So Matthew's a real creep, huh? Well, maybe. But maybe things are not quite what they seem. Matthew's life is complicated, and the advent of 10 year old Danny and his silent sister Isabelle, children of crack addict Kim, is making his already complex life into a real-life version of an Escher drawing. I picked this book off the bargain shelves at Barnes and Noble, figuring $5 was a reasonable price to pay for a book I wasn't sure I would like. Turns out I did like it; it kept me reading enthusiastically for several hours. There were lots of plot twists - not very plausible, perhaps, but who cares? They were deliciously twisty! I was rooting for Matthew to be a good guy! I was thrilled for Danny and Isabelle to get comfy beds and delicious food, instead of sleeping on roachy floors with crack whores! Okay, I could quibble about the remarkably trauma-free emotional adjustment made by the two formerly homeless kids. I could carp about ridiculously adult way everyone gets over former mortal insults. But really, why fret? It's summer! Let's be happy! I'm going to read some other Lisa Tucker books and get EVEN HAPPIER. no reviews | add a review
Matthew and Amelia were once in love and planning to raise a family together, but a decade later, they have become professional enemies. They're kept in balance only by Matthew's best and oldest friend, Ben, a rising science superstar--and Amelia's new boyfriend. But when Matthew finds himself on a desolate bridge face-to-face with a boy screaming for help, that delicate balance begins to crumble.--From publisher description. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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