The Wise Women
A Novel
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3.8 • 26 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A Good Morning America Buzz Pick and one of Read With Jenna's Most Anticipated Books of 2022
"I laughed and shook my head in recognition as the three Wise women crashed through love relationships, terrible advice, and delightful moments of connection. The Wise Women is a smart and tender novel about how hard—and vital—it is to find the place where we belong." —Amanda Eyre Ward, New York Times bestselling author of The Jetsetters and The Lifeguards
A witty and wildly enjoyable novel, set in New York City, about two adult daughters and their meddling advice columnist mother, for readers of Meg Wolitzer, Cathleen Schine, and Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney.
Popular advice columnist Wendy Wise has been skillfully advising the women who write to her seeking help for four decades, so why are her own daughters’ lives such a mess? Clementine, the working mother of a six-year-old boy, has just discovered that she is actually renting the Queens home that she thought she owned, because her husband Steve secretly funneled their money into his flailing start-up. Meanwhile, her sister Barb has overextended herself at her architecture firm and reunited semi-unhappily with her cheating girlfriend.
When Steve goes MIA and Clementine receives an eviction notice, Wendy swoops in to save the day, even though her daughters, who are holding onto some resentments from childhood, haven’t asked for her help. But as soon as Wendy sets her sights on hunting down her rogue son-in-law, Barb and Clementine quickly discover that their mother has been hiding more than a few problems of her own.
As the three women confront the disappointments and heartaches that have accumulated between them over the years, they discover that while the future may look entirely different from the one that they’ve expected, it may be even brighter than they’d hoped.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Sorell (Mothers and Other Strangers) returns with a layered story of New York City's gentrifying outer boroughs and an advice columnist who tries to help her two grown daughters. Wendy Wise's younger daughter, Clementine, learns her husband lied about purchasing the house they've been renting, and that he put her money into a beverage start-up. Shocked, she sends him packing, but soon faces eviction, which she worries will uproot their anxious six-year-old son. Her older sister, Barb, an architect who's fought to add an art space to a luxury condo building in Brooklyn, worries her girlfriend might be cheating on her. Meanwhile, Wendy hasn't told her daughters she's been let go from her magazine, nor that she's remarried and moved from Manhattan to a Florida retirement community. But sensing she's needed, Wendy returns to help her daughters, hoping the gesture will help alleviate their long-held resentments of her for remarrying (and divorcing) so soon after the death of their father. Spurred on by a somewhat contrived set of coincidences, they try to figure where Clementine's husband went and how to get the money back. Sorell does a fine job describing neighborhood tensions and the city's real estate scene, though the story wraps up a bit too neatly. This gets the job done, but its pleasures are fleeting.
