Publisher's Weekly Review
Taking a page from her essay collections (I Was Told There'd Be Cake and How Did You Get This Number), Crosley once again brandishes a mix of smarts and sarcasm to commemorate some of life's more mortifying moments in her first work of fiction. The novel begins at a luxe wedding as once-close friends-Victor, a recently fired misanthropic data analyst at an Internet start-up; Kezia, the tightly wound second in command to an eccentric New York jeweler; and Nathaniel, a foppish, struggling TV writer in L.A.-rehash old sexual tensions and lament their stagnant existences since the carefree days of college a decade prior. A third of the way through the book, the narrative shifts from oft-explored late-20-something territory into a ridiculous yet entertaining comedy-of-errors adventure caper with doddering Victor at the helm. When the ailing mother of the groom discovers him drunkenly passed out on her bed the night of the wedding, she inexplicably reveals the whereabouts of a secret stash of jewels to him before dying-including a sketch of the long-lost 114-karat necklace featured in Guy de Maupassant's famed short story "The Necklace" and clues to its supposed whereabouts. Victor's harebrained attempts at tracking the necklace down, culminating in a French chateau break-in with a mildly concerned Kezia and Nathaniel in hot pursuit, make not only for fun reading but hint at the surprisingly poignant extent of just how far old acquaintances will go to save one another's hides. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
This debut novel from a bestselling essayist follows an interlinked circle of friends on a quest to find a priceless necklace and regain an even rarer treasure: a genuine connection. This trenchant first novel from the author of I Was Told There'd Be Cake (2008) and How Did You Get This Number (2010) is about a necklace; Guy de Maupassant's classic short story, "The Necklace"; and an interconnected circle of friends from college who, like beads on a broken necklace, have dispersed and rolled off on different paths. Some of these young people have gotten lostor lost some essential part of themselvesalong the way as they hurtle toward their 30s, watching their 20s blur by and disappear in the rearview mirror. While the luckier (wealthier, more successful) of them marry and move toward parenthood, three of the palshapless, unemployed data-crunching Brooklynite Victor; charismatic yet not quite successful LA screenwriter Nathaniel; and clever, spritelike Kezia, whose job working for an offbeat jewelry designer in Manhattan is, she fears, hardening her soulall single, are beginning to wonder if they're wasting their lives pursuing goals as false and worthless as a paste gemstone. Crosley's smart, sardonic, sometimes-zany, yet also sensitive story is told from the alternating perspectives of these three linked characters, taking the readers along as they reunite first for a friend's wedding in Miami and then again for a road trip in France, setting off from Paris in pursuit of, yes, a priceless necklace but also of things far more valuable: the truth about themselves and one another, a genuine sense of purpose (or, at least, an antidote to their approaching anhedonia), and, perhaps most precious of all, a connection to one another. This novel about a chain of interlinked friends on the brink of their 30s has a few overly manufactured plot elements but overall is a real gem. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Several years after they graduated from college together, far-flung friends Nathaniel, Kezia, and Victor reunite at a friend's wedding. An encounter there between Victor and the groom's mother sets in motion a transatlantic caper in search of the real necklace behind Guy de Maupassant's famed short story. The triangle could be classic Victor loves Kezia, who loves Nathaniel, who loves everyone or no one but it isn't. And once our trio serendipitously reaches l'Hexagone, Victor to find that necklace, Kezia on a mission for work, Nathaniel just for fun, all bets are off; illusions and dreams are shed and shared with a new ease. Crosley, of the smart, humorous essay collections I Was Told There'd Be Cake (2008) and How Did You Get This Number? (2010) writes her three-dimensional characters' thoughts and dialogue with a clever crispness her fans would hope for, and she further stuns with a mastery of her first novel's setting and frame: a lavish Florida wedding, a crotchety Parisian jewelry designer's offices, a drive through enchanting and disturbing provincial France. A great recommendation for NA readers, too.--Bostrom, Annie Copyright 2015 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
AVENUE OF MYSTERIES, by John Irving. (Simon & Schuster, $17.) Raised in a garbage dump in Mexico, Juan Diego Guerrero was a prodigy who taught himself to read; years later, he is a creative writing professor at the University of Iowa with international literary star status. Irving tells the story of his transformation in this unfailingly optimistic novel, the author's 14th, in a tale that leaps across the globe. THE GODDESS POSE: The Audacious Life of Indra Devi, the Woman Who Helped Bring Yoga to the West, by Michelle Goldberg. (Vintage, $16.) In Goldberg's telling, Devi (1899-2002) was an "esoteric female Forrest Gump" whose life intersected with some of the 20th century's most interesting episodes. The yogini, born into an aristocratic family in Latvia, persuaded India's leading gurus to train her, earned a spot on J. Edgar Hoover's watch list and is credited with a share of spreading the yoga craze on these shores. I TAKE YOU, by Eliza Kennedy. (Broadway, $15.) Though her wedding looms, Lily - a lawyer in Manhattan and a "free spirit" by her mother's admission - copes with her cold feet by frantically bed-hopping, going so far as to proposition her fiancé's friends (and sleeping with one of them). Kennedy's debut novel is a joyful exploration of a young woman pursuing, without apology, what she wants. THERE IS SIMPLY TOO MUCH TO THINK ABOUT: Collected Nonfiction, by Saul Bellow. Edited by Benjamin Taylor. (Penguin, $22.) This collection of more than 50 pieces, first released on the centenary of the author's birth, showcases Bellow's literary ambidexterity; while best known for his novels, he was also an accomplished critic and lecturer, and some of his greatest attributes - not least "a dynamic responsiveness to character, place and time" - are on display here, our reviewer, Martin Amis, wrote. THE CLASP, by Sloane Crosley. (Picador, $16.) Victor reunites with his college friends at a classmate's wedding to find that their dynamic remains largely unchanged. But when the story of a mysterious necklace, lost in the Nazi era, captures his interest, he sets off to Europe to investigate, unleashing a plot that our reviewer, Julia Pierpont, called a clever exploration of a "late-quarter-life crisis, disguised as a caper." WHY GROW UP? Subversive Thoughts for an Infantile Age, by Susan Neiman. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $14.) A philosopher's defense of maturity draws from the works of Kant, Rousseau and Arendt.