Rating: 
Summary: Lucinda's Got Her Franchise!
Review: The NYTBR panned this book recently, but I thought it was harmless brain fluff, like a TV sitcom--Lucy, Full House, Sisters, etc. There's no serial boyfriend gimmick this time around, though a couple of Phoebe's old boyfriends return and the irritating run-on list shtick returns (because, I guess, the writer is a sort of auteur, like Penny Marshall or Ron Howard). On the dust jacket, we're informed there's a "Phoebe Fine franchise," a la MI2 or Tomb Raider (as in, "Angelina's got her franchise! Now she's set for life!"). Franchise means the subsequent books will likely get worse til Lucinda Rosenfled hits bottom and is branded the new Tama Janowitz (after which she'll write something different, like Peyton Ambrose). The NYTBR was right to compare Why She Went Home to the Meghan Daum book, though a better comparison might have been Doc Hollywood.
Rating: 
Summary: Who CARES why she went home?
Review: This book is slightly better than the author's first but that's not saying much. The narrator is a privileged self-involved twit and the story is superficial and dull. It also could've used a good weed-whacking...is at least 100 pages too long. Where have all the editors gone? The clever packaging of books like this can't make up for their fundamental mediocrity. Save your money!
Rating: 
Summary: Phoebe Fine is pretty goddamn funny.....
Review: This book is very enjoyable to read. Phoebe Fine, Rosenfeld's infuriatingly skinny but curiously likeable heroine, has called time-out on the downtown artists, nerdy nice guys, Brooklyn slackers, and Marxist professors she dated and bedded, ultimately to her dissatisfaction, in What She Saw, Rosenfeld's first novel, which created a splash when it came out in 2000. (The New Yorker excerpted it.) With her non-existent career still non-existent, Phoebe's returned to suburban New Jersey where her dotty mother, Roberta, is suffering from cancer and her annoyingly big-breasted--annoying to Phoebe, that is--sister, Emily, is recovering from a broken marriage. There, she finds a new boyfriend--Roget Mankuvsky, another in Rosenfeld's long line of unappetizing male characters--feuds with Emily, and starts scouring garbage and selling her finds on eBay. It's not exactly Sex in the City, which seems to be Rosenfeld's point. Even neurotic New Yorkers can get a real life if they pick up and leave town. As in What She Saw, the language is sharp and the observations are acute. Plus, Rosenfeld has a wicked sense of humor. Some reviewers, including the one in the Times, seem to think she's trying to write War and Peace or Anna Karenina. Get a life, guys! Why She Went Home is a well-written dark comedy--the literary equivalent of an early Woody Allen movie. Which, if you remember, were highly amusing.......
Rating:
Summary: Why she didn't read this whole book...
Review: This book was so boring and infuriating that I skimmed through about 100 pages and read the last few chapters, just so I could see how it ended. Why Phoebe would ever keep dating Roget is beyond me- he was pompous, rude, annoying and cheap. Even though she can't stand him she apparently keeps dating him because she has the self esteem of a doormat. I skimmed the book to see when she would dump him and was so disgusted when that didn't happen. This book has it's humorous moments, but they are so few and far between that it is not worth reading.
Rating: 
Summary: A Charming Sequel to Rosenfeld's Debut Novel
Review: Why on earth does Phoebe move back to her parents' New Jersey home? For a whole list of reasons. They include being sick of her existence in Manhattan, disgusted by yet another failed relationship, and filled with despair at watching all her single friends become halves of couples. She also wants to spend time with her mother, who has been diagnosed with what she calls "the c-word."Phoebe's father is an oboist, which leads to Phoebe meeting and eventually dating the orchestra's new young conductor, Roget Mankuvsky. He's not polite, good-looking or generous, and their first date and ensuing encounters are disasters. And yet Roget holds an unexplainable attraction for Phoebe. Their on-again, off-again relationship is complicated by the maneuvering of Phoebe's curvaceous, self-centered and needy sister, Emily. Phoebe and her parents decide they'll make a fortune by scavenging the neighbors' trash (actually household rejects left out for the garbage collectors) and selling the "treasures" on eBay. Phoebe's decided the acquisition of wealth is ultimately important to her happiness, so she won't have to live her parents' threadbare just-getting-by existence. She actually makes money on her first refurbished find, piquing Emily's interest. During a trash-picking adventure, Emily and Phoebe rediscover their bond, usually hidden behind competitive animosity. While waiting for eBay money to pour in, Phoebe eats her mother's odd meals (chicken boiled in cheap wine with a few canned mushrooms is dubbed "coq au vin"), squabbles with her sister, and hates/loves Roget. One subplot (complete with an "Oh, no! This can't be happening!" moment) follows the possibility that Phoebe's mother's old well-used viola is actually a rare treasure, worth millions. The question puts Phoebe in a quandary: If she pursues appraising it, is it for her own benefit? Or is she selflessly trying to help her parents? Could Roget actually be manipulating Phoebe, acting interested in her only to get his hands on the viola? Phoebe's mother, Roberta, lives rather jauntily with her cancer, although the disease has aged her appearance and she sports a terrible red wig. She jokes about "the torture chamber" where she has her treatments. Roberta's illness is treated in an offhand manner, nearly the opposite of melodrama. Yet Phoebe is forced to face her parent's mortality. Phoebe is a selfish character living an aimless life, and I sometimes found her insecurities exhausting. But in the hands of this author, I believed she was a real person and I loved her in spite of her eccentricities. And, yes, the plot's pace sometimes bogs down with detailed descriptions. Yet those descriptions, of whimsical characters and offbeat situations, are irresistibly funny and worthwhile. Outlandish as they are, characters and situations feel utterly true. I happily put my own life on hold to read about Phoebe's. Now I must find and devour the prequel, WHAT SHE SAW, and then wait ---impatiently --- for the next installment of Phoebe's story. --- Reviewed by Terry Miller Shannon
Rating:
Summary: JUST READ IT
Review: You won't stop laughing or turning the pages. Rosenfeld gets it all exactly right. I'll follow Pheobe Fine to the end. THIS IS NOT CHICK LIT. It is a page-turner that hits all the right notes!!!!!!!
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