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UNFINISHED WORK OF ELIZABETH D.: A NOVEL
Author:
Bernier, Nichole
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Class:
Fiction
Age: Adult
Language: English
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LC: PS3602
Print Run: 25000
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ISBN-13: 9780307887801
LCCN: 2012009062
Imprint: Crown
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Pub Date: 06/05/2012
Availability: Out of Print Confirmed
List: $24.00
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Hardcover
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Physical Description:
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309 p. ; 25 cm.
H 9.53",
W 6.38",
D 1.19",
1.1481 lbs.
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LC Series:
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Brodart Sources:
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Brodart's Insight Catalog: Adult
Brodart's TOP Adult Titles
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Bibliographies:
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Awards:
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Starred Reviews:
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TIPS Subjects:
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Romance
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BISAC Subjects: |
FICTION / Women
FICTION / Family Life / General
FICTION / Literary
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LC Subjects:
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Diaries, Fiction
Female friendship, Fiction
Love stories
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SEARS Subjects: |
Diaries, Fiction
Female friendship, Fiction
Love stories
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Reading Programs: |
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| Annotations |
| Brodart's TOP Adult Titles | 03/01/2012 |
| Kate was vacationing on Great Rock Island. But, it wasn't your usual relaxing, fun-filled vacation. She was grieving the death of her best friend, Elizabeth, and was now set to follow Elizabeth's instructions that Kate read the journals she left behind. In doing so, they reveal an Elizabeth Kate never knew which causes her to examine her own choices as a wife, mother, and professional. Debut Novel, 25K, Auth res: MA |
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| Journal Reviews |
| BookPage | 06/01/2012 |
| Frequent Elle, Cond Nast Traveler and Self contributor Nichole Bernier takes a step away from nonfiction and arrives on the literary scene with an engrossing debut novel, The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D. This exquisite and honest portrait of friendship and motherhood unfurls a suspenseful plot whose jaw-dropping surprise ending is one that readers will be sure to discuss long after the book has been finished. The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D. introduces readers to Kate Spenser, a mother balancing her career as a chef while simultaneously processing her grief over the loss of her friend Elizabeth. Elizabeth's death in a freak plane accident means Kate has been bequeathed a large stack of journals chronicling Elizabeth's life. Elizabeth's instructions request that Kate "start at the beginning" and figure out how best to deal with them once she has finished reading the complete set. It is with this heavy load that Kate retreats to her vacation rental home on Great Rock Island. While spending the summer with her children, she must decide if she is going to return to the restaurant trenches while also attempting to uncover the secret behind Elizabeth's request. With an absent, working husband who travels continuously overseas as a hotel scout, Kate becomes more and more immersed in Elizabeth's confessions, realizing that perhaps she never really knew her friend at all. And what is supposed to be a relaxing summer fills with tension as Elizabeth's widowed husband pressures Kate to reveal his wife's secrets, and Kate struggles to uncover what her own husband is hiding from her. Bernier successfully explores how women manage to balance so much in their everyday life and the complicated emotions (guilt, frustration, fear) that go along with being a working mother. As Kate realizes there is more to Elizabeth than meets the eye, she is given the chance to uncover the truth not only about their friendship but also about herself. The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D. is an important read for anyone who dares to ask just how well we really know our friends and neighbors, and what those discoveries mean about us. Megan Fishmann. 320pg. BOOKPAGE, c2012. |
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| Booklist | 05/15/2012 |
| The question of what makes a life, secrets shared and secrets kept, and the complete makeup of a single human being are the cornerstones of Bernier's introspective debut. Kate Spenser is entrusted with an enormous task, to read and then decide what to do with the personal journals of her friend Elizabeth after her untimely death in a small plane crash. The novel, set in New York just after the attacks of 9/11, discloses how the aftermath of Elizabeth's death deeply affects Kate and her family, not to mention Elizabeth's bereaved husband and children. As Kate sifts through the journals, starting at the beginning as requested, she immediately realizes that even best friends can withhold shattering secrets, the kind that can forever change the lives of loved ones and make everyone question the fine nuances of what it means to be a parent, a spouse, a friend, a community member, and a resident of this earth for only a finite, unknown amount of time. Bernier's tale blends bittersweet heartaches with soaring truths in a style reminiscent of Jodi Picoult and Anita Shreve. Trevelyan, Julie. 320p. AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, c2012. |
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| Kirkus Reviews | 07/01/2012 |
| Who was Kate's friend Elizabeth--a capable, cheerful and optimistic mother, or the troubled soul her diaries reveal? Bernier's debut repetitively probes the enigmatic life of the American wife. A cloud of regret hangs over this parallel-voiced examination of female roles as Bernier peels back the public faces of her two central characters to reveal anxiety and disappointment. Kate, a pastry chef and mother of two, used to be Elizabeth's neighbor in Connecticut until moving to Washington, D.C. After Elizabeth is killed in a plane crash, Kate learns that she has been left her friend's diaries and the request that she start reading them at the beginning. Perhaps they will explain Elizabeth's fateful decision to fly to California and her involvement with a man named Michael. Reading the journals, Kate learns of Elizabeth's guilt over her sister's death; and about her critical mother; her abandoned art career; her mixed feelings about her husband; her efforts to be good enough; her last choices. Kate, gripped by boundless fears for her family, constantly compares her friend's marriage to her own, which is solid enough but may now be changed by the whole experience. This nuanced portrait of marriage offers insight alongside somber reflections, but its landscape is obsessively interior and not very eventful. 320pg. KIRKUS MEDIA LLC, c2012. |
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| Library Journal | 06/01/2012 |
| En route to an island beach house with her family in the summer of 2002, Kate stops to pick up her friend Elizabeth's journals from her widower, Dave. Elizabeth died in a plane crash a month before 9/11, and her will indicated that Kate should get her journals if anything happened to her. Kate spends the summer reading and becomes obsessed, both fascinated and sobered by the aspects of her life that Elizabeth kept hidden from her friends and even Dave. Kate is also consumed by the mystery of why Elizabeth was on the flight that took her life. As she reads, Kate reflects on her own marriage and life choices, as well as the paranoia about her family's safety she developed after 9/11. Debut novelist Bernier's thoughtful observations on friendship, identity, motherhood, work, and marriage wrap around the mystery of Elizabeth, whose journal writing enlivens the book and gives readers much to think about. VERDICT This literary novel should be a favorite of book groups and have broad appeal beyond. Nancy H. Fontaine, Dartmouth Coll., Hanover, NH. 320p. LIBRARY JOURNAL, c2012. |
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| Publishers Weekly | 05/21/2012 |
| When Elizabeth dies in a plane crash a month before 9/11, her will designates her friend Kate as the recipient of her lifelong journals, in this tepid debut. Kate spends her family vacation during the summer of 2002 reading through Elizabeth's journals, discovering the truth about the woman she thought she had known. Elizabeth's history is full of secrets: a childhood accident, a decision to abandon her artistic studies to care for her mother, her relationship with her husband, and most curiously, the reason she was on that ill-fated August 2001 flight. Other than her time-appropriate anxieties about terrorism and loss, Kate is a pedestrian character, with quiet conflicts about her workaday marriage and thoughts of exchanging motherhood for a return to her career as a pastry chef. As a character, Elizabeth has more potential, but Kate's recaps of important events in Elizabeth's life, interspersed with brief passages from the diaries, feel journalistic and unfinished, like notes from a character study. Moments of beauty and depth of spirit will appeal to readers interested in secrets revealed, but the novel is slow and relies too heavily on introspection. Agent: Julie Barer. (June). 320p. Web-Exclusive Review PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, c2012. |
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