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Summary: A book to share with your girlfriends
Review: The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters is a story of true sisterly love. It'll make you laugh. It will make you cry. It's not sappy. It is strong and real and tender and funny. And it's not just about sisters. It's about one woman's relationship with her sister, her best friend, her parents and the lost love of her life.
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Summary: Stop Everythign and Read This Book
Review: Be prepared to stop everything in your life to read this wonderful first novel by Elisabeth Robinson. First of all it's an amazing feat of novel construction that the whole story is told in correspondence (letters, fax and e-mail) form...and all letters FROM the protagonist, movie producer Olivia Hunt...only at the very end do we get a view point from another character. That this technique is so effectivly and poignantly executed is an amazing testament to Robinson's talent.This story of two sisters, one of whom has cancer, will make you laugh, cry and feel like a Hollywood "insider". It will also make you late to bed, late to work, and generally engrossed for as long as it takes you to read it. I hope this is only the first novel of Ms. Robinson's.
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Summary: Loved this Book
Review: I loved this book. It is a funny, witty and interesting story of Hollywood, being a sister, dealing with the medical profession, and working on a relationship. I highly recommend it.
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Summary: A little manipulative
Review: Easy to read. But there is an obvious manipulation on the part of the writer, and a bit too self serving. Has a bit too much of a Hollywood way of playing out.
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Summary: Funny, compelling, touching
Review: This is a fantastic book! It's a fun, easy read that's still weighty enough to stay with you for a time after you've finished it. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll highlight lines of text that strike you as incredibly true.
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Summary: tremendous character driven tale
Review: Thirty-four year-old movie producer Olivia Hunt is struggling to put together a deal to develop an adaptation of Don Quixote when she receives the devastating news that her younger sister, Madeline, has leukemia. She is stunned because unlike herself Madeline seemed contented with her recent marriage and living in their hometown of Shawnee Falls, Ohio. Olivia begins flying back and forth between visits to her sibling and the Southern California movie industry. On the flights she writes letters reflecting on life decisions she has made. She ponders about the wisdom of choosing a career over love when Madeline's health proves how ephemeral life is. As she considers running off to New Mexico to be with her only true love and while her sister's health deteriorates, Olivia has the opportunity of a lifetime filming Don Quixote in Spain. Will she choose love in New Mexico or sisterly love in Ohio or overseas fulfilling her greatest fantasy? This contemporary work of fiction is a tremendous character driven tale that enables the audience to see deep into the heart and soul of the lead character, and through her also those individuals in her circle. Though clearly a major tearjerker, the tale keeps from falling into a sappy soap by Elisabeth Robinson's skillful handling of Madeline's illness as a focus of activity by friends and family in which at times the same person will do something gallant followed by frustrated selfishness and guilt. Thus the support cast seems very real, but the tale is clearly owned by Olivia, who displays the dichotomous traits of cynical concern that readers will appreciate while empathizing for her sister. Harriet Klausner
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Summary: Mindbendingly Mediocre
Review: This is the story ( told in typical chic-lit conventions) about a creepy movie producer feeling guilt after the loss of a sister who she treated badly for years. The writing has quite a bit of nastiness and is mocking towards others, and is filled with second-rate plays at poetic metaphor. The format of presenting the book by way of one letter after another letter after another letter after another letter (all by the same person, by the way, and all with the same one-sided misery and sarcasm) finally wears one down. Most likely what we have here are a group of Robinson's actual journal entries, and/or copies of late night emails and letters she wrote during a period of upset, anger, and guilt-- now pasted together and rehashed as a "book." The best part of the book was the marketing. Second best part -- the cover.
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Summary: Worse Than Dreadful
Review: For me, this is the kind of book that makes me question the very fabric of the publishing industry--those fine folks who take the written word, chose a historic typeface, run it through the printing press, paste-up a pretty dust jacket, and then market it to suckers like me. A huge, insurmountable flaw lies in the choice of literary device: the dreaded collection of one-sided letters. Whatever sharp edges may smarten the plot (a sister's terminal illness) are reduced to frivolity by this convention. Worse still is the ludicrous notion that Hollywood execs actually write letters. In my experience with that peculiar crowd, few even take the time to spell-check their email, let alone sit alone at The Ivy scribing correspondence to their loved ones (okay, I'll grant an occasional unsent letter to an ex-lover). Even if this story surrounded the making of a movie about a famous letter writer (say another film about Virginia Woolf), it still wouldn't fly. Then there's the preposterous celebrity name dropping. Why does Robinson need to detail the painfully obvious characteristics of the celebs whose careers she has chosen to diminish by including them in her novel (yes, yes, we know that Robin Williams is manic and hairy and that Steve Martin plays banjo and collects art). Yawn. So, in the end, we're saddled with another stale morsel of chick lit packaged to look like something a bit more literary. Don't waste your time; write a long letter to your sister instead...even if you don't have one.
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Summary: Bad Beyond Belief
Review: I can hardly believe someone actually advocated the publishing of this novel. It's simply not worth the paper it is printed on. Transparently, it is the author's story, slightly fictionalized and wrapped in a pretty package. The writing and form are terrible. Please skip it and choose something worthy instead. Perhaps Adam Langer's "Crossing California," Dan Chaon's "You Remind Me of Me" or Tom Perrotta's "Little Children."
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Summary: Letters from the heart,
Review: I enjoyed this book. I thought it was well-written and interesting. You'll like it too.
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