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Rating: 
Summary: Absolutely Fabulous
Review: "...in this world the extraordinary was commonplace." Those are words that appear in this brilliant novel, and they describe the world inhabited by the characters invented by Jenny McPhee. Muriel Spark said it best: "A daring and charming book."
Rating: 
Summary: "An audience does not expect a story to be literal."
Review: As soon as Veronica Moore, a scriptwriter for the long-running daytime drama, "Ordinary Matters," meets Alex, a new actor on the show, she is smitten, and their mutual attraction soon blossoms. There's only one problem. Alex is the unsuspecting father of her sister Lillian's unborn baby. Lillian, with both an MD and a PhD in neuroscience, has found her biological clock ticking and no prospective husband on the horizon. After glimpsing Alex at a bar, she has deemed him a suitable sperm donor, taken him back to the apartment, and then dismissed him, planning never to see him again. As the story alternates between the present and the past, showing the Moores' bizarre family history, the story of Veronica and Lillian grows in depth and complexity. Their lives soon become more outrageous than anything Veronica ever dreamed up in a script. Every melodramatic cliche comes true in this plot--characters have hidden pasts, love goes wrong, a private investigator uncovers secrets, families are brought together and then pulled apart, "dead" people come to life, and people's remembrances prove faulty. Plot-wise, this is as over-the-top as any romance or melodrama you may ever read. McPhee is a unique and surprising writer, however, with a firm grounding in science. She presents her wild plot not for its own sake or for sensationalism, but to illustrate true science, which underlies all behavior, even bizarre behavior. The soap opera-like plot combines with elements of biology and neurobiology, including details of Lillian's pregnancy, the neurology of the senses, the "neurobiology of humor," the physiology and neurology of the brain, and the meaning of consciousness. A dominant theme is the inability of humans to predict events that can either open their lives to new opportunities or destroy their hopes. Though the mixing of elaborate melodrama with pure science may seem strange, McPhee is largely successful, but the hard science within the novel requires explication. This creates an analytical, objective tone, inimical to character development, since characters do not develop through their actions when both the characters and actions are used to illustrate specific (scientific) ideas. Although Alex remarks that "an audience does not expect a story to be literal," Veronica's comments may be more appropriate: "It wasn't that she felt manipulated, it was that she hadn't been manipulated well enough. " This reader wished that the novel had manipulated her just a bit more effectively, but it is still great fun to read, often humorous, and full of ironies--and that, of course, is "no ordinary matter." Mary Whipple
Rating:
Summary: "An audience does not expect a story to be literal."
Review: As soon as Veronica Moore, a scriptwriter for the long-running daytime drama, "Ordinary Matters," meets Alex, a new actor on the show, she is smitten, and their mutual attraction soon blossoms. There's only one problem. Alex is the unsuspecting father of her sister Lillian's unborn baby. Lillian, with both an MD and a PhD in neuroscience, has found her biological clock ticking and no prospective husband on the horizon. After glimpsing Alex at a bar, she has deemed him a suitable sperm donor, taken him back to the apartment, and then dismissed him, planning never to see him again. As the story alternates between the present and the past, showing the Moores' bizarre family history, the story of Veronica and Lillian grows in depth and complexity. Their lives soon become more outrageous than anything Veronica ever dreamed up in a script. Every melodramatic cliche comes true in this plot--characters have hidden pasts, love goes wrong, a private investigator uncovers secrets, families are brought together and then pulled apart, "dead" people come to life, and people's remembrances prove faulty. Plot-wise, this is as over-the-top as any romance or melodrama you may ever read. McPhee is a unique and surprising writer, however, with a firm grounding in science. She presents her wild plot not for its own sake or for sensationalism, but to illustrate true science, which underlies all behavior, even bizarre behavior. The soap opera-like plot combines with elements of biology and neurobiology, including details of Lillian's pregnancy, the neurology of the senses, the "neurobiology of humor," the physiology and neurology of the brain, and the meaning of consciousness. A dominant theme is the inability of humans to predict events that can either open their lives to new opportunities or destroy their hopes. Though the mixing of elaborate melodrama with pure science may seem strange, McPhee is largely successful, but the hard science within the novel requires explication. This creates an analytical, objective tone, inimical to character development, since characters do not develop through their actions when both the characters and actions are used to illustrate specific (scientific) ideas. Although Alex remarks that "an audience does not expect a story to be literal," Veronica's comments may be more appropriate: "It wasn't that she felt manipulated, it was that she hadn't been manipulated well enough. " This reader wished that the novel had manipulated her just a bit more effectively, but it is still great fun to read, often humorous, and full of ironies--and that, of course, is "no ordinary matter." Mary Whipple
Rating:
Summary: Better than first one by McPhee
Review: Flabbergasting, overwhelming, airy & dense. There's no novels like her novels!
Rating:
Summary: McPhee does it again
Review: For lovers of The Center of Things, Jenny McPhee's first novel, this is a must too. McPhee is so funny, smart, original and uncommonly stylish. In a world of drab fiction do yourself a favor and open up to McPhee's world in No Ordinary Matter - you will not be disappointed.
Rating: 
Summary: Not that great
Review: I seem to be the only reviewer who is not totally enthralled with this book. I found the plot to be very plodding, and I thought the characters were unbelievably stiff. Lillian seemed, although very erudite, to be very unlikeable from her childhood until she herself became a mother. The sisters' relationship was stilted, the "romance" was pedestrian and boring. I was left wondering what I'd missed. I found myself checking to see how many more pages were left throughout my reading of "No Ordinary Matter." I have always liked McPhee's books, which is why I stuck with it, but not this one.
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