#Review: Love And Other Hazards – Claudia Riess
Glenda Fieldston lives for both her daughter and her work. Every day slips into the next, full of a monotony she does her best not to think about it. Part of her often wonders if this is it. If there’s something more out there than the life she and her daughter have always known. All that changes when she comes across Eugene Lerman and his daughter while out one day.
Love And Other Hazards is a bittersweet, yet heart-warming story about the trials and tribulations of two people intent on living the lives they lead. We meet the independent Glenda, a woman who wants nothing more to provide for herself and her daughter. She’s a woman who refuses to rely on others, often feeling awkward when it comes time to do just that.
Then, we have the shy, yet inquisitive Eugene. This is a man who’s had to make do for himself and his daughter ever since his wife left them. Sometimes, he feels out of the place in the world around him. Though he does his best to assert himself, the unfamiliar causes him to slink into the shadows in order to make sense of it all.
Together, Glenda and Eugene complement other. Where one fails, the other picks up the pieces in the hopes of setting all wrongs to right. The two of them are constantly dealing with pain and heartache. They’ve learned to adapt and move on, even if that’s hard to do sometimes. The fact that the past often pops up unexpectedly hinders the progress they’ve made between them. Nevertheless, they’ll willing to try in the hopes of seeing where the road takes them.
Claudia has written such a stirring book. This is a story anyone can relate to. I know I can. We’re given a myriad of characters, each striving to survive the adversities they encounter every step of the way. Though things seemed slow at the beginning, I liked the fact that she builds everything up with each step the characters take. I couldn’t put the book down, and was disappointed to see things end. Such a wonderful read!
Synopsis:
Love and Other Hazards is a novel about urban singles stumbling toward fulfillment in an odyssey of sex, love, and parenting.
Glenda Fieldston is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with her seven-year-old daughter, Astrid, when Eugene Lerman comes walking by with his eight-year-old daughter, Meredith, a schoolmate of Astrid’s. The families spot each other, Glenda and Eugene engage in long-range cursory assessments, and then they go their separate ways.
But not for long. Glenda and Eugene cross paths professionally soon after, and circumstances at work bring them into close association. So begins a friendship fraught with complications. Glenda’s independence is self-imposed and fierce. Eugene’s was foisted on him by a wife who left him. Although Glenda’s and Eugene’s personal demons are incompatible, their longings are, confoundedly, in harmony. Their cautious friendship is further inhibited by past and present relationships, and it remains to be seen if they can break out of their set ways to make a break for uncharted love.
PURCHASE LINKS:
Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B071P4FLK2
Barnes and Noble:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/love-and-other-hazards-claudia-riess/1126420588
iTunes:
https://geo.itunes.apple.com/us/book/love-and-other-hazards/id1238526584?mt=11
About The Author:
Claudia Riess is a Vassar graduate who has worked in the editorial departments of The New Yorker magazine and Holt, Rinehart and Winston books and has edited several art history monographs. Her first novel, “Reclining Nude,” was published by Stein and Day. Oliver Sacks, author of “Awakenings,” had said her first book was “exquisite—and delicate… a most courageous book, full of daring—a daring only possible to a passionate and pure heart.”
The author divides her time between the Hamptons and Manhattan with her husband, Bob.
Website:
http://claudiariessbooks.com
Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/ClaudiaRiessBooks
Twitter:
http://twitter.com/ClaudiaRiess
Claudia Riess’s Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3052782.Claudia_Riess
Love and Other Hazards‘s Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35111698-love-and-other-hazards
