Third-grade teacher Annie Harper pines for boyfriend David Paterson, who's been deployed to Iraq, while she tends the home fires in Tacoma, Wash., in Berentson's cutesy debut. Annie's got plenty to keep her busy: a precious memoir-in-progress, a best friend whose relationship takes a surprising turn, a few pals in a nursing home, a long-lost brother and a growing uncertainty about where her 24-year-old heart might be settling. Sweet and manic Annie chronicles her ever-changing points of view of life, love and loyalty, and while the occasional interesting aside sneaks in, Berentson breaks no new ground on the battleground of modern love: a smart and sassy gal who needs more than safe and sane to make her heart sing discovers the love of her life right in front of her nose. Annie's yearlong slog through loneliness and self-doubt all comes down to a rather underwhelming conclusion. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.Twenty-four-year-old elementary schoolteacher Annie Harper is left behind in Tacoma, Washington, when her boyfriend, David, is shipped overseas.
Wrestling with the complex emotions tied to his absence, she begins writing a confessional memoir, imagining it as a moving account of “the woman at home.” But instead of writing a touching account of life on the home front, a tale of integrity and patience peppered with earnest love letters and fat, juicy tears, Annie lives life without David in ways she didn't anticipate.
She spends more time with her best friend, Gus, begins volunteering at a local retirement center, and adopts a pet chicken. Even as she misses David enormously between his sparse e-mails and choppy phone calls, she struggles with conflicted feelings about their long-distance relationship, her own identity and family history, and the ideological underpinnings of a war that's exerting such a force on her life.
Told through raw, rough draft chapters of Annie's memoir-in-progress, Miss Harper Can Do It is a funny and poignant story of what it means to be loyal versus what it means to be in love. In Annie, Berentson has rendered a quirky young woman who copes with loss and stress in unexpected ways, only wavering briefly on the brink of self-pity and never losing her sense of humor.
Twenty-four-year-old elementary schoolteacher Annie Harper is left behind in Tacoma, Washington, when her boyfriend, David, is shipped overseas.
Wrestling with the complex emotions tied to his absence, she begins writing a confessional memoir, imagining it as a moving account of “the woman at home.” But instead of writing a touching account of life on the home front, a tale of integrity and patience peppered with earnest love letters and fat, juicy tears, Annie lives life without David in ways she didn't anticipate.
She spends more time with her best friend, Gus, begins volunteering at a local retirement center, and adopts a pet chicken. Even as she misses David enormously between his sparse e-mails and choppy phone calls, she struggles with conflicted feelings about their long-distance relationship, her own identity and family history, and the ideological underpinnings of a war that's exerting such a force on her life.
Told through raw, rough draft chapters of Annie's memoir-in-progress, Miss Harper Can Do It is a funny and poignant story of what it means to be loyal versus what it means to be in love. In Annie, Berentson has rendered a quirky young woman who copes with loss and stress in unexpected ways, only wavering briefly on the brink of self-pity and never losing her sense of humor.
Editorial Reviews
Product Details
BN ID: | 2940173578877 |
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Publisher: | Brilliance Audio |
Publication date: | 04/30/2009 |
Edition description: | Unabridged |