The Hot Flash Club: A Novel eBook: Nancy Thayer

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Format: Kindle Edition
File Size: 591 KB
Print Length: 384 pages
Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0345492293
Publisher: Ballantine Books (December 18, 2007)
Sold by: Random House Digital, Inc.
Language: English
ASIN: B000XUDGAI

It's chick lit for the AARP crowd in Thayer's spirited but not very funny 14th novel. A chance meeting at a cocktail party brings four Boston-area women in their 50s and 60s together to found the titular club, in which they confess their woes and plot to help one another. Recovering alcoholic and perennial hippie Shirley, a talented masseuse, unknots workaholic Alice, who clues Shirley on how to dress for success, craft a business plan and establish her dream spa-retreat. Brilliant and lovable, but a "dowdy academic," Marilyn botches her attempt to save Alice's high-power job but rediscovers her sexuality (after the Club revamps her wardrobe) and loses her insufferable husband, Theodore. Faye, a widow and blocked painter, solves a locked-room mystery while sleuthing on behalf of Marilyn and also discovers her inner art therapist. Thayer dutifully lays down her threads and weaves them into a busy plot. She bluntly and repeatedly tackles the physical consequences of menopause: hip spread ("a confetti of cellulite"), flabby midsections ("like having a sleeping puppy lying on a pillow in her lap, except that when she stood up, the puppy, pillow and lap remained") and hair loss (but "you can get a wig for your pubic hair.... Something called a merkin"). There are tender and funny moments, but the novel suffers from awkward expository dialogue, long stretches of backstory, and-surprising from much-published Thayer (Between Husbands and Friends; Stepping)-too many instances of telling rather than showing.Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From Booklist Best-selling author Thayer fashions a delightfully quirky look at the pains and the passions of middle age. Four menopausal women meet at a retirement party and discover they have much in common despite their disparate backgrounds and educations. Bonding and banding together, high-powered career gal Alice, widowed matriarch Faye, New Age masseuse Shirley, and mousy academic Marilyn decide to join forces in a collaborative attempt to solve each other's professional, marital, physical, and emotional problems. The results are hilarious as they discover both the rewards of sisterhood and the power of chocolate. Still, each woman gets more than she bargained for when fate--with a little help from the club members--takes dramatic and unexpected turns. Sure to be a hot item, this humorously poignant tribute to women of a certain age has the potential to charm readers of all ages and both sexes. Margaret Flanagan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved The Hot Flash Club: A Novel eBook: Nancy Thayer