This year it will be different and other stories
(Book)
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Copies
Location | Call Number | Status |
---|---|---|
Downers Grove Public Library - 2nd Floor - Adult | FICTION BINCHY, M. | On Shelf |
Geneva Public Library District - 2nd Floor - Fiction | F BINCHY | On Shelf |
Oak Lawn Public Library - Adult Fiction | FICTION BINCHY | On Shelf |
Warrenville Public Library District - Adult Fiction | F BINCHY, MAEVE | On Shelf |
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Published Reviews
Publisher's Weekly Review
That Binchy (Circle of Friends) would choose to enter the Christmas market should not be a surprise. Her wide audience enjoys the warmth of her fiction, the emphasis on the power of love to transform ordinary liveseven as she acknowledges that for some people, love is elusive or the prelude to frustration and heartbreak. Here she presents 15 short stories that take place during the holiday season; all display her deft rendering of family relationships and the stresses of contemporary life. Unfortunately, however, these tales are formulaic and superficial. We meet women unable to spend Christmas with their married men, children from broken homes, aged parents for whom Christmas is an ordeal rather than a pleasure, couples trying to resolve the past, lonely souls looking for a future. Several stories feature second wives whose husbands are oblivious to the machinations of their (always beautiful but selfish) first spouses. While the characters and their predicaments are potentially interesting, as soon as her narratives begin to develop, Binchy catapults forward to disappointingly simplistic endings. Readers will yearn for more: more character development, more detail, less fast-forwarding, fewer perky or maudlin conclusions. These tales are fine for a fast read during a busy season, but many will wish that Binchy had instead developed one of them into a novel that would do justice to her characters and themes. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Library Journal Review
Stories from the beloved Irish author. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Book Review
A collection of Christmas-centered feel-good tales about love and family snarls in the season of comfort and joy. All are rendered in Binchy's popular unglossed style (The Glass Lake, 1995, etc.), and set in England, Ireland, and Australia. Some of the 15 tales have to do with unwise, innocent women carrying torches for the married lovers who take them for granted. Most eventually find the strength to douse the torch they've been carrying and let their own light shine--one is helped along by the plight of a loveless teenager and a sad gambler who's lost all. There are also abrasive relationships with children. In ``The First Step of Christmas,'' a resentful, neglected stepdaughter is lured home by a simple holiday tradition. Two single men with wayward adult children find mutual support and insight in ``A Typical Irish Christmas,'' and two singles in their 50s fly to Australia to meet their children's spouses for the first time--and discover each other along the way. Included as well are amusing tales about ditsy-to-just-plain-awful grannies. In ``A Season of Fuss,'' adult children foolishly try to curb their mother's towering nervous flights of preparation for the holidays. In ``The Best Inn in Town,'' two crazy grandmothers--one with ``a lip that curled all on its own,'' the other possessing ``a tinkling laugh that would freeze the blood''--are about to be dumped in a local inn. But the grandchildren, used to ``the natural order of things'' at Christmastime, have a better idea. There are marital reconciliations, too, and, in the sourly amusing title story, a long-suffering housewife, a good old reliable preparer and supplier of Christmas jollity, plans a surprise for her dense family that will resonate far beyond Christmas. In all, an appropriate gift for the casual reader--a bit of sentimentality and a touch of romance, along with humor and hopeful turns to treat those with cases of the holiday blues. (Literary Guild featured alternate selection)
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Citations
Binchy, M. (2007). This year it will be different and other stories (Delta Trade paperback edition.). Delta Trade Paperbacks.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation, 17th Edition (style guide)Binchy, Maeve, 1940-2012. 2007. This Year It Will Be Different and Other Stories. New York: Delta Trade Paperbacks.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities (Notes and Bibliography) Citation, 17th Edition (style guide)Binchy, Maeve, 1940-2012. This Year It Will Be Different and Other Stories New York: Delta Trade Paperbacks, 2007.
Harvard Citation (style guide)Binchy, M. (2007). This year it will be different and other stories. Delta Trade paperback edn. New York: Delta Trade Paperbacks.
MLA Citation, 9th Edition (style guide)Binchy, Maeve. This Year It Will Be Different and Other Stories Delta Trade paperback edition., Delta Trade Paperbacks, 2007.