{"id":36237,"date":"2014-10-20T09:44:25","date_gmt":"2014-10-20T13:44:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/?p=36237"},"modified":"2014-10-20T10:37:22","modified_gmt":"2014-10-20T14:37:22","slug":"the-possibilities-by-kaui-hart-hemmings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-possibilities-by-kaui-hart-hemmings\/","title":{"rendered":"The Possibilities by Kaui Hart Hemmings"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Possibilities\"<\/a>So as not to prolong the disappointment and annoyance, I’m going to try to keep this short. I actually skip posting about duds more often than not because the energy feels so wasted, but this title has history:\u00a0it was attached to a ‘how-many-of-these-have-you-read?”-query from a close\u00a0friend, prompted by a\u00a0Huffington Post<\/em> article, “11 Asian-Pacific American Authors You Should Read<\/a>.” [At the time, I’d\u00a0read nine\u00a0of the 11, so I felt compelled to\u00a0finish the list: Sidewalk Dancing<\/a><\/em> proved predictable, and this … well … read on.]\n

You could\u00a0treat this as\u00a0a PSA of sorts: in light of\u00a0our overcommitted schedules, perhaps I might\u00a0save a reader or two from feeling resentful over the 9.5 hours indulged in the ears (narrator Joy Osmanski has a lot of whining to do)\u00a0or the almost-300 that passed through stiffening fingers. But then given all the positive reviews available out there, perhaps contrary\u00a0reactions are good fodder for an enlightening conversation between opposites. Do please share\u00a0your thoughts!<\/p>\n

So here’s the basic gist: Multigenerational Breckenridge resident Sarah St. John lost her 22-year-old son Cully in an avalanche three months ago. Although she thought she was close to her only child \u2013 who was living at home after college graduation, working as a valet parking attendant\u00a0\u2013 she (surprise!) learns how much she\u00a0didn’t know about him: drug-dealing and baby-making, although\u00a0she seems most betrayed\u00a0by\u00a0the regular visits he\u00a0had with his father Billy whom Sarah never married. Cully’s childhood friend, Morgan,\u00a0has\u00a0planned a memorial\u00a0at their college, so\u00a0Sarah, Billy, her father Lyle, her best friend (and Morgan’s mother) Suzanne, all pile into Suzanne’s oversized SUV to attend. In tow\u00a0is Kit, whom no one knew just a few days earlier, but who might have known Cully best of all.<\/p>\n

Alas, tragic\u00a0narrative that Possibilities\u00a0<\/em>is, finding even a smidge of sympathy is challenging: The latest cast created by\u00a0hapa Hawaiian Kaui Hart Hemmings (who hit the literary and celluloid jackpot with the George Clooney vehicle,\u00a0The Descendants<\/a><\/em>) is an utterly unlikable, one-dimensional bunch. Morgan is a shallow opportunist. Billy is one of those too-charming teenagers\u00a0who never really grew up. Suzanne and her soon-to-be-divorced cheating husband Dickie (really?!!)\u00a0are soap-opera cut-outs. Lyle might have been sympathetic\u00a0for\u00a0all his mourning-disguised-as-late-night-infomercial-shopping, but his inappropriate over pointing out Suzanne’s growing girth is\u00a0inexcusable. The only unforeseen detail about Kit is perhaps where she decides to regurgitate. And Sarah, with her horribly cruel fat-jokes (like father, like daughter?) she directs at her very-best-friend-in-the-whole world, nulls any tolerance\u00a0she might have elicited. With friends like that … run for the hills and never come back!<\/p>\n

Being temporarily domiciled in a similar high-altitude resort town with a famous film festival had me convinced I could\u00a0find empathetic wisdom\u00a0between these pages. That I kept going to the very\u00a0end in spite of my constant eyeball-rolling perhaps is merely proof of my\u00a0oxygen-deprivation. Time to take my own advice … and run for the hills indeed.<\/p>\n

Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n

Published<\/strong>: 2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So as not to prolong the disappointment and annoyance, I’m going to try to keep this short. I actually skip posting about duds more often than not because the energy feels so wasted, but this title has history:\u00a0it was attached to a ‘how-many-of-these-have-you-read?”-query from a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36240,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,81,6,197,1794,60],"tags":[6608,75,11,135,5932,6021,13,39,6020],"class_list":["post-36237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-audio","category-fiction","category-hapa","category-hawaiian","category-nonethnic-specific","tag-bookdragon","tag-death","tag-friendship","tag-grandparents","tag-joy-osmanski","tag-kaui-hart-hemmings","tag-love","tag-parent-child-relationship","tag-possibilities"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Possibilities by Kaui Hart Hemmings - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/the-possibilities-by-kaui-hart-hemmings\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Possibilities by Kaui Hart Hemmings - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"So as not to prolong the disappointment and annoyance, I’m going to try to keep this short. 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