23 Nov / Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman [in Booklist]
Perhaps because her single mother was an adamantly independent, relentlessly peripatetic news photographer, Nina Hill prefers to stay still. Mostly raised in L.A. by a wonderful nanny, by high school she was better read than all of her teachers. She finished a UCLA Art History degree and now works in one of the few remaining independent bookstores, living an ordered life of frequent solitude (for reading) and taking people “in homeopathic doses; a little of the poison was the cure.”
And then suddenly, she goes from an only to one of many, when a lawyer appears to announce a dead, never-known father and his mysterious will – his substantial wealth to be divided among a horde of stirpes.
The motley cast gives Emily Rankin ample opportunity to hit her stride, as she embraces the biting, argumentative, suspicious relatives with especially affecting gusto. As Nina’s world expands – beyond new family, she’s also about to fall madly in love (with complications, of course) – Rankin adopts Bette Davis disdain, Tom Hanks affability, and Meg Ryan charm. We’re talking Hollywood, after all.
Review: “Media,” Booklist, November 1, 2019
Readers: Adult
Published: 2019