Something Blue - Hardcover

Hood, Ann

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0553071408 ISBN 13: 9780553071405

Publisher: Bantam, 1991

Synopsis

On the morning of her wedding day, Katherine flees to the home of her old college friend Lucy, who reluctantly agrees to put her up, in a story about women who must learn to know one another again

About this title

Reviews

Hood's ( Somewhere Off the Coast of Maine ) breezy and absorbing fourth novel takes on a perennially popular subject, the friendships of moderately struggling young women in New York City. Lucy's career as an illustrator of children's books is on the verge of coming together; she's only unhappy that her boyfriend, a dancer just about ready to throw in the towel, is not equally successful. By contrast, Lucy's inveterately restless chum Julia (who moves from sublet to sublet, pretends to hail from Milan--not Brooklyn--and sleeps only with oddballs and foreigners) falls unexpectedly in love with one man and one apartment. And Lucy's old roommate Katherine, who has left her intended at the altar in Connecticut but can't seem to shed her prim, cookie-baking persona, arrives in the city as Lucy's somewhat unwelcome houseguest, trailing her unhappy past as a sorority girl. Over the course of a year, the three have affairs and endure breakups, agonize about the direction of their lives, and both doubt and reaffirm their sometimes difficult three-way camaraderie. Anchored in the contemporary by references to brand names, restaurants and TV shows, Something Blue offers a faithful and enjoyable group portrait that is at the same time facile, as Hood ties up all loose ends in the effort to launch her heroines with conventional brio.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Lucy, on the verge of success as an artist, worries that she no longer loves Jasper since he has lost his ambition to be a dancer. Katherine, her old sorority sister, leaves Andy at the altar and appears at Lucy's door in New York only to begin dating every man she meets. Julia, Lucy's current best friend, makes up stories about her past, housesits vacant apartments, and finds sexual gratification in one-night stands with any man with a foreign accent. Any vestiges of self-discovery do not occur to these three rather shallow 30-year-old women until the novel's end. Emphasis on good looks and ref erences to current styles in clothing, cuisine, decor, and music provide further "material girl" accents. Talented writing is obscured by this insipid plot; it is too sexually explicit for young readers and too vapid for mature adults.
- Sheila Riley, Smithsonian Inst. Libs., Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Bantam
• Publication date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0553071408
• ISBN 13: 9780553071405
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 215