29: A Novel [Paperback]

Adena Halpern (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 15, 2010

What if you closed your eyes, blew out the candles, and your wish came true?

Ellie Jerome is a young-at-heart seventy-five-year-old who feels she has more in common with her twenty-nine-year-old granddaughter, Lucy, than her fifty-five-year-old daughter, Barbara. Ellie’s done everything she can to stay young, and the last thing she wants is to celebrate another birthday. So when she finds herself confronted with a cake full of candles, Ellie wishes more than anything that she could be twenty-nine again, just for one day. But who expects a wish like that to come true?

 

29 is the story of three generations of women and how one magical day shakes up everything they know about each other. While Ellie finds that the life of a twenty-something is not as carefree as she expected, the sheer joy of being young again prompts her to consider living her life all over. Does she dare stay young for more than this day, even if it means leaving everyone she loves behind?

Fresh, funny, and delightful, 29 is an enchanting adventure about families, love, and the real lessons of youth.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The proverbial search for youth's fountain manifests itself in Ellie Jerome, a 75-year-old woman who has employed every available artifice to remain young. Identifying more with her stylish young granddaughter, Lucy, than with her abrasive middle-aged daughter, Barbara, Ellie's 75th birthday wish is to be 29 again, for just one day. When her wish comes true, hilarious problems arise, as the young Ellie must create a new persona in order to enter and leave her apartment in a neighborhood where everyone knows the old Ellie. Choosing to let Lucy in on her secret, Ellie persuades her to be her guide on a youthful adventure in pursuit of stylish looks and a trendy life. While the dynamic duo romp through Ellie's magical day, Ellie's daughter and her dearest friend, Frida, a 75-year-old worry wart, having decided that Ellie was kidnapped, embark upon their own misguided adventure before the old (now wiser) Ellie returns at the end of her big day. With this rollicking, if familiar, offering, Halpern (whose earlier novel, The Ten Best Days of My Life, is being adapted into a film) sets out to prove that you're only young twice.
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From Booklist

In her second novel, Halpern plays on wishful thinking about age. Although Ellie is 75, she feels closer in age to her granddaughter Lucy, 29, than to her daughter Barbara because of all she has done over the years to stay young in body and in spirit. So with another birthday bringing her closer to 80, she makes a wish to be 29 again for one day and it comes true. As Ellie finds herself caught up in a day full of hijinks and humor, she questions the life she has chosen as she experiences the youth she has been striving for. Ellie, Barbara, and Lucy all learn things about each other that change everything they thought they knew about their close-knit family. Halpern buoyantly tells the story of three generations of women and how one “freaky” day changes their relationships and helps Ellie decide between the thrill of being young again and the life she would be leaving behind. --Claire Orphan

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Touchstone; Original edition (June 15, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1439171122
• ISBN-13: 978-1439171127
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #427,226 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A 75-Year-Old Chick Lit Protagonist Raring for a Day of Youthful Adventure, June 14, 2010

By 

Rachel Kramer Bussel "Cupcakes Take the Cake ... (New York City) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: 29: A Novel (Paperback)

Spoilers. This novel may be packaged like chick lit (not to knock it, I'm a fan), and maybe in some ways it is, if by "chick" you mean 75-year-old feisty grandmother. I'd expected this book to be about Lucy, or involve some sort of swap, but really it's about Ellie Jerome, a woman who wishes on her 75th birthday to be 29 for a day, and gets her wish. Halpern does an excellent job of exploring both her excitement over her newly taut body mixed with the generation gap as Ellie realizes that being 29 now is not what it was in her day.

Was Ellie's husband her true soul mate? Did she even really love him? The answers Ellie starts out with are not necessarily the ones she winds up with, and I wasn't quite certain what she would choose or how she would view her past; while I like how the book ended, there was a part of me that wishes Ellie had made other choices, for her sake. Barbara, Lucy's mother and Ellie's granddaughter, is one of the more entertaining, as well as annoying, characters you'll meet, and is fun to hate.

While the plot is a bit contrived, regarding who gets to find out Ellie's secret, the revelations and repercussions of that one day are so broad that you can forgive any convoluted ways. Ellie is a memorable character at both ages and her excitement over the life of her granddaughter, and her estrangement from her daughter, are shown to be part of, but certainly not the whole of her life. Just as the reader comes to know Ellie as a full person with wishes, dreams, fears and regrets, so does her family, and she doesn't hold anything back. 29 is a lot of fun but also has some important messages about family, love and seizing the day, which Ellie does with aplomb (even if she doesn't get to try on her underwear). I liked that Lucy, the 25-year-old, while a vital player here, took a backseat to Ellie; they argued and had fun but this is Ellie's story. A refreshing, lively read that I plan to gift to my grandmother!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars LAUGH-OUT-LOUD!!!, August 26, 2010

By 

Louise Jolly "Bookaholic" (Ontario, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 29: A Novel (Paperback)

This was a joyful, fun, witty, hilarious and amusing tale of a wish come true! Seventy-five-year-old Ellie Jerome makes a wish on her birthday to be 29 again, just for one day. A day later she wakes up and `poof' there she is, a stunning beauty 29 years of age!!

The only one she can trust and confide in who will believe her is her own 29-year-old granddaughter Lucy. Once Lucy gets over the shock of really realizing that the gorgeous and strikingly beautiful woman standing before her really IS her 75-year-old Grandmother, the two sit down and make a list of all the things Ellie wants to experience in one day that she had not experienced the first time she was 29.

Not wanting to involve Ellie's daughter and Lucy's mother, Barbra nor Ellie's best friend Frida, Ellie and Lucy quickly gather what they need and set out on their day of adventure. In the meantime, Barbara and Frida are on their own adventure because they think Ellie has been kidnapped because they can't find her and no one seems to have seen her. What poor Barbara and Frida go through is truly exhausting at the same time, for the reader, a giggling, sniggering, hooting laugh all the way through!

This is a fairy tale book that should become a classic!!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Too marvelous for words . . ., August 9, 2010

By 

kellytwo "kellytwo" (cleveland hts, ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 29: A Novel (Paperback)

Being a bit past the 70 year mark, I can say with absolute authority, this is the most real, most fun, most honest book I've ever read about women, men, and aging. It's fabulous!

It's also very obvious that the author really did spend a lot of time with older women -- she certainly is nowhere near that age yet herself, but they really unloaded to her, and she really, REALLY got it!

There cannot be a 70-something woman alive who hasn't wished at some recent time to be once again 29 or even 39 for just a day. Just one day. Knowing what I know now, I'd never really want to be that age again, for any length of time, but oh! What I could do with one day. Just one. Wow. The mind boggles just to think about it.

Lucky Ellie Jerome to have had such a wish come true -- and all the resultant adventures that followed her wish. But Ellie is also fortunate in her daughter Barbara, grand-daughter Lucy and best friend Frida. We should all be so blessed.

Thank goodness that dreams are ageless. We can be young again and live the fantasy life in that world, even if we can't manage it in the real one!

Thank goodness, too, for Adena Halpern, who created this totally charming and joyful fairy tale for those of us who wish we could, just one more time . . .