reviews
Romantic Times BOOK Reviews Magazine, June 2008
At long last, a debut author has crossed our path and set it metaphorically ablaze. There’s much to love in this story, including Lucy, the complicated and lovable main character. Told in alternating viewpoints–sometimes Lucy speaks in first person, other times third, and even her older sister Nancy gets in her two cents’ worth–this device is well conceived and works brilliantly. This is the first novel to come around in a long while where the author needn’t tell us how special her protagonist is–it’s obvious just be reading these peeks into her life.
Summary: Lucy has a joke for everything. That is, when she’s not painting whatever image has popped into her head or plotting her next career move or going with the flow with her latest beau. She’s not misguided; she’s merely finding her footing. She meets perfect Ben when she’s in her 20s and goes so far as to accept a proposal of marriage … but is that really what she wants in the time of her life? And will he really wait for her should she elect to take a different path? —Lauren Spielberg
Nominated for a Reviewer’s Choice Award.
Booklist Magazine, April 15, 2008
Like the novels of Melissa Bank, Luongo’s first offering is a novel-in-stories. Her protagonist, Lucy Venier, spends her twenties floundering in careers and relationships that are wrong for her. Lucy tries her hand at journalism, advertising, sales, and even law school, but none of the professions feel like the right fit for the artistic Lucy, who is most at home when painting or filling her surroundings with her creations. Her taste in men is even more misguided: she dates a feckless, unfaithful newspaper editor; an arrogant cad who magnifies her self-loathing; and an incomprehensible loser who gambles away $800 on her credit card. The only winner of the bunch is Ben, who is both charming and funny and believes in Lucy, but his proposal and their subsequent engagement feel suffocating. Though Lucy’s boyfriends aside from Ben are almost unrealistically unappealing, her sharp observations (“I’ve stopped reading women’s magazines, so I feel less and less trivial everyday”) make her a heroine worth rooting for. —Kristine Huntley
Publishers Weekly, February 5, 2008
After college, Lucy Venier’s search for happiness takes her on a bumpy but ultimately fulfilling ride in Luongo’s witty debut. Should Lucy be a Philly crime reporter, a Web content writer, an advertising whiz, or should she follow in her sister’s footsteps and go to law school? Or should she embrace her gifted inner artist? Although Lucy’s amazingly adjusted in some ways, she’s woefully behind in others. Sometimes her boyfriends—an older newspaperman who uses her for sex; an abusive recovering alcoholic and a boorish store manager who talks like a wasted rapper—lead her down some unfortunate paths. But Lucy’s irrepressible spirit helps her survive, while surprise reconnections with her sister and a former fiancé support her realization that life is an act of art-in-progress. Though it has the trappings of chick lit, this is much wiser and frequently funnier; it reads like a novel-in-stories, each piece contributing to the overall effect of a young woman coming—often roughly—into her own.
http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080718/LOCALENT/807180334
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0765316676?tag=word08-20
