Review : The Smart One by Jennifer Close
The Smart One by Jennifer Close
Pages : 340
Genre : Fiction
Stand alone
My Rating : 3/5
What it’s about :
Now that they are all living under the same roof, their lives are colliding in unexpected ways. It’s up to them to turn their lives around and get back on their feet, through all the yells, laughs and tears.
My Thoughts :
I wasn’t sure about The Smart One when I started reading it. Claire and Martha, Weezy’s daughters, weren’t characters I really liked or could really relate too. Both of them were clearly depressed (not clinically, just in a “life is hard” way) and there wasn’t much joy in their life – which ironically, made them a bit judgmental.
But then we get to Cleo – and that’s when I got really hooked into the novel. I guess it shows my current passion for YA fiction, since Cleo is the youngest of the girls. Still in college, she is the girlfriend of the youngest child in the family, Max. She wasn’t perfect, either, keeping people at a distance and being slightly impulsive; but she also seemed to have a big heart and a head on her shoulders, so I was immediately drawn to her character.
I found it interesting that the author chose to write from the point of view of Cleo rather than Max. She’s not part of the family, exactly; Weezy finds her too beautiful for her son (she will obviously break his heart!) and the sisters are sort of intimidated by her and a little bit distant. She’s only the college girlfriend, after all! But having the narration telling her side of the story was very interesting. First, because it offered a different appreciation of the family, and second, because it made The Smart One less about family, and more about the different relationships between sisters, women, mothers and daughters. The men in the story are, in fact, very secondary to them all.
I think that, from the cover and the summary, I expected something a little lighter. It’s a pleasant surprise though that Jennifer Close gave complexity to her characters. I do wish all of their anxieties would have been balanced by a few more happier or funnier moments. The book was surprisingly… cynical, I guess? For instance, I was expecting Claire to heal and get into a huge romance, but instead, she spends most of her time with a divorced guy who lives in his parents’ basement. So the book was definitely more realistic, and less “romantic fantasy”.
In the end, The Smart One was a pleasant read, even though its characters weren’t always so pleasant (but that’s life, too!) I think many women and young women could relate to the book, whether they are mothers, sisters, daughters – or a little of each.
The Smart One is available for sale right now! Thanks to Knopf for generously providing a digital copy of the book for this review.
I didn’t love the authors last book and actually felt like I was too old for it. This one sounds more interesting to me.
Not my kind of book, but a great review (: I loved how you gave us the essence of the story without spoiling it!
Sounds interesting. Like something I might dig. Great review.
I’m not so sure that I’m into the cynical right now, but I do find the story interesting. I also like that one of the main viewpoints comes from a character that’s outside the family. I bet that she can see things in a very different light than the others. I am on the fence about reading this one, but I think you did a beautiful job with the review!