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The pathos of Beautiful Ruins meets the hilarity of Crazy Rich Asians in this comedic and tender novel.
Their meeting in a parking lot outside a high school football game was both completely forgettable and utterly life-changing. Because no matter how you look at it, it is piss-poor luck to meet the love of your life before your life has even started. Fierce and ambitious, Alison is determined to shed her Midwestern roots and emerge an actress. Kyle, all heart and spiritual yearning, believes medicine can heal the world. What could these mismatched souls have to do with each other? Everything and nothing. Even as their fates rocket them forward and apart, neither can fully let go of the past.
When Alison gets her lucky break in New York City, she ends up on the fast track to stardom and a world far more different from Cincinnati than she could have ever imagined. Back home in Ohio, Kyle marries in haste and repents at leisure. Reluctantly embracing life in suburban hell, he becomes a pediatrician. While Kyle's dreams begin to molder, Alison learns that the spotlight is always circled by shadows. As their lives inevitably intersect, Alison and Kyle must face each other in the revealing light of their decisions. I'm Glad About You is a glittering study of how far the compromises two people make will take them from the lives they were meant to live.
"Starred Review. A rare honest story about love, ambition, and compromise... The snappy dialogue and plot you'd expect from a veteran dramatist plus the rich exploration of character that novels are made for." - Kirkus
"Rebeck delivers some hilarious riffs on the venal nature of show business, even as she also imparts some hard truths on the need for compromise in relationships." - Booklist
"Rebeck takes on a lot, including the vagaries of entertainment media which can be the catalyst to overnight success and failure, as well as the problematic impact religion has on Kyle's life choices. Still, she entertainingly gets her message across that celebrity is not as fabulous as it looks and that people who follow their dreams need to stay true to themselves to find true happiness." - Publishers Weekly
"In her third novel (after Twelve Rooms with a View), Rebeck is strongest when portraying Alison's experiences in Hollywood after she's discovered in New York, no surprise given her screenwriting credentials as the creator of the television series Smash." - Library Journal
"Theresa Rebeck's smart, funny, deeply sympathetic, and astringently observant novel gets everything right - what we say and don't say, how we see ourselves and how we want to be seen, the dream and the realities of love, the rewards that are offered and the sacrifices required from anyone who wants to lead an interesting and meaningful life: in the theater, in the city, in the world." - Francine Prose
"Nobody writes more fiercely and honestly about show business than Theresa Rebeck. Allison, the heroine of this novel, discovers that answered prayers can be as frustrating as unanswered ones. Her journey made me laugh and cry." - Erica Jong, New York Times bestselling author of Fear of Flying
"This novel is wise. And funny. And brave. Rebeck skewers her targets with fierce wit and impeccable timing. But her dry-eyed empathy for those who follow brittle dreams is what resonates. Haunted by the ideals they've abandoned, her characters are dogged, often courageous, and thoroughly human." - Rachel Urquhart, author of The Visionist
This information about I'm Glad About You was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
In 2011 Theresa Rebeck was named one of the 150 Fearless Women in the World by Newsweek. She has had more than a dozen plays produced in New York, including Omnium Gatherum (cowriter), for which she was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and The New York Times has referred to her as "one of her generation's major talents." She was the creator of the NBC drama Smash and has a long history of producing and writing for major television and film successes. She is the author of Three Girls and Their Brother (2008) and Twelve Rooms with a View (2010). She has taught at Brandeis University and Columbia University and lives in Brooklyn with her family.
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