A Life of Bright Ideas: A Novel

Author: Kring, Sandra

Edition: Original

Number Of Pages: 448

Details:

A secret tore best friends Evelyn “Button” Peters and Winnalee Malone apart. Now, nearly a decade later, a secret brings them back together.   Nine years ago Button and Winnalee began recording observations in their Book of Bright Ideas, a tome they believed would solve the mystery of how to live a mistake-free life. Now it’s 1970, a time of peace, love, war, and personal heartbreak. Button’s mother is dead and her grieving father has all but abandoned his children. Quiet, thoughtful Button has traded college for a sewing job in her mother’s bridal shop to help her Aunt Verdella raise her whirlwind six-year-old brother. In Button’s free time, she writes letters to the boy she loved from afar through high school, hoping he will come to love her as more than a friend. Then, like that magical Wisconsin summer of ’61, Button is greeted with the wild, gusty arrival of Winnalee. Now a beautiful flower child, Winnalee is everything Button is not. She’s been to Woodstock and enjoys “free love,” but their steadfast bond of friendship is tested as Button begins to notice the cracks in Winnalee’s carefree façade. And then Winnalee’s mother arrives with a surprise that Button never sees coming, and the fiery determination to put things right in both families once and for all. From Booklist Nine years after Winalee Malone left tiny Dauber, Wisconsin (detailed in The Book of Bright Ideas, 2006), in 1961, she rolls back into town, to the surprise and elation of her best friend, Button. Eighteen-year-old Button is grieving the loss of her mother while trying to watch after her six-year-old brother, Boohoo, who is constantly wreaking havoc. Aunt Verdella and Uncle Rudy, while acting as the loving parents Button never had, are no replacement for her father, who has become increasingly distant. Winalee has grown into a full-on free-love hippie, complete with a painted van and memories of Woodstock. The two revisit their Book of Bright Ideas but don’t always follow their own advice. Shy, nervous Button narrates the story, unable to admit her own talents as a dressmaker or her appeal to Tommy Smithy, farmhand and amateur pilot. This is a novel about friendship and sisterhood (with a priceless kitchen scene involving body acceptance and a nosy neighbor), and readers who like Fannie Flagg and Adriana Trigiani will want to head up north with Kring. --Susan Maguire

Reviews:

Praise for A Life of Bright Ideas"[A] novel about friendship and sisterhood [for] readers who like Fannie Flagg and Adriana Trigiani."-- Booklist"[N]ew readers will find it easy to empathize with—and even grow to love—Evelyn and Winnalee."-- Publishers Weekly Praise for Sandra Kring:

“Kring is an intelligent, compassionate writer who deeply understands the depth of human experience. . . . A smart, hopeful story.” —The Capital Times, on The Book of Bright Ideas  

“Kring’s brilliance lies in her powerful reversals and revelations, taking readers and characters on a dramatic, emotional roller coaster.”

— Publishers Weekly (starred review)  

“Sandra Kring’s delightful and nuanced take on Midwestern America . . . feels real and moving.”

— Salon

About the Author:

Sandra Kring lives in Wisconsin. She is the author of  Carry Me Home and  The Book of Bright Ideas, which was named to the New York Public Library’s Books for the Teen Age list. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. 9780553386820|excerpt Kring / A LIFE OF BRIGHT IDEAS CHAPTER 1 Bright Idea #62: If you want to go to Detroit because you think it might be a fun place to live, but you end up in Gary, Indiana, instead and your sister says, “Well that’s life,” then you might as well just accept that you are where you are for now. I was upstairs in Grandma Mae’s old house, in the room wallpapered with army-­green ivy and a window seat, a stack of shirts on hangers bending my wrist, when Aunt Verdella shouted my name. She didn’t call out “Evy”—­short for Evelyn, which ...

EAN: 9780553386820

Release Date: 07-02-2012

Languages: English

Item Note: Great shape- pages are unmarked and sharp.Has a remainder mark. Paperback Used - Very Good Ships fast! 2012Original

Item Condition: UsedVeryGood

Binding: Paperback