Multiple Choice - Hardcover

Cook, Claire

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670033308 ISBN 13: 9780670033300

Publisher: Viking Adult, 2004

Synopsis

March Monroe endures her daughter's animosity when they wind up sharing a radio station internship, a situation that is complicated by her tired marriage, her angry adolescent son, and a mid-life crush. By the author of Must Love Dogs. 60,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author

Claire Cook is the author of the novels Must Love Dogs and Ready to Fall. A teacher of physical fitness and creative writing, she has had previous stints as a copywriter, radio continuity director, garden designer, and dance and aerobics choreographer.

Reviews

A midlife back-to-school adventure propels a suburban housewife into an unlikely radio career in Cook's third novel, set on the South Shore of Massachusetts. March Monroe is the spunky protagonist who left college life behind to marry a civil engineer named Jeff and raise a daughter and son while working as an aerobics instructor, party planner and finally a life coach. With Olivia off to college and Jackson not far behind, March finally takes her husband up on his longstanding offer to send her back to school. The degree requires an internship, and when March explores her limited options she finds herself inadvertently working together with Olivia as fellow interns at a local radio station. Exploiting the friction between March and Olivia, handsome programming director David Callahan proposes that the two do a mother-daughter call-in show that quickly takes off and becomes popular. Cook wrings some humor out of family life, March's mild flirtation with Callahan and the back-to-school experience. But the story meanders, detouring into asides about family pets, the generation gap, the stresses of being overscheduled and other typical suburban family disasters. Despite (or because of) the stabs at domestic insight, the cluttered result reads like warmed-over Erma Bombeck.
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After getting her daughter, Olivia, off to the local university, March decides to complete her own degree in something "exotic and multisyllabic." Unable to wangle her way out of the required internship, March selects a position at a local radio station and at the first intern meeting discovers Olivia, another intern. Mother and daughter can now fight again on a daily basis and do so to the delight of the station staff. Their squabbling leads to hosting a radio show. March's life is full of other frustrations. Her thoughtless husband complains about household tasks and forgets to tune in to March and Olivia's show. Her best friend won't let March live down a kitty-litter-in-the-oven incident. A sweet and humorous suburban domestic comedy with likable characters will have readers firmly in March's corner. However, they may be left wondering when March will finally grow the backbone that threatens to emerge in every chapter (and make things interesting) and feel let down by an ending that just appears. Kaite Mediatore
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Viking Adult
• Publication date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0670033308
• ISBN 13: 9780670033300
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240