December 20, 2010
Precious, an advertising executive who worked for nine years at Sony Pictures, has a career that's ripe for satire, but her clumsy attempt at industry caricature is slight and bogged down with a glut of inconsequential backstory. Jeannie is a marketing executive for Oxford Pictures, where she deals with demanding Hollywood types, huge budgets, and long hours. When her producer boyfriend, Aidan, proposes, Jeannie begs off, citing her difficult family, and regales him
with allegedly comic stories about her family—her siblings' nuptial antics, a pervy priest, an endearingly senile grandmother. Despite the shenanigans, Jeannie's family appears to be more loving and kind than troublesome. Meanwhile, Jeannie's bland work travails—a younger executive is constantly undermining her and attempting to make her look incompetent—and the pressure of Aidan's proposal begin to take their toll, leading to a denouement so hurried it reads like Precious couldn't wait to be done with it.
February 15, 2011
Jeannie Thompson has an extremely stressful job as a movie studio executive. The only thing scarier than her job is the thought of introducing her longtime boyfriend, Aidan, to her family. To be fair, the Thompsons have a track record. She grew up the youngest of five kids in a clamorous Michigan clan. She decides to tell Aidan just one of her familys stories to try to get him to fathom her difficult family. The story starts with her older brother Evans wedding in the summer of 1986, which was followed by the surprise wedding of her sister Lucy the very next day and eventually encompassed a continuously broken sprinkler system, a runaway dog, and a sneaky grandmother. The story ends with a murder and a sex scandal. She doesnt want Aidan to get hurt by her family, which has happened to all her previous boyfriends. But her good intentions unwittingly hurt Aidan, and she cant repair the damage without the support of her family. This ultimately uplifting story will resonate with anyone who has or knows a large, boisterous, close-knit family.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)