The Answer Is Yes [Hardcover]

Sara Lewis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 1998

In this heartwarming tale of one woman's search for love and belonging, Jenny Brown has three simple wishes: to enjoy a happy marriage, to have a job she loves, and to be reunited with her birth mother. But her wishes aren't coming true. Just when her life seems hopeless, Jenny stumbles on to the Institute of Affirmation, a quirky adult education center, where every idea is a good one.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Set in suburban San Diego, The Answer Is Yes takes the typical problems of a youngish, married woman--a distracted husband, a lackluster job--and straightforwardly shows the ways in which they undermine a happy life. Better yet, Sara Lewis's third novel manages to get from those problems to a satisfying life, a trip that takes lots of luck and hard work. Lewis's narrator, Jenny, has just moved to Southern California from Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her scientist husband, Todd, who seems more married to his lab than to her. In contrast to Todd's preoccupation with his research, Jenny hates her bank job and when she loses it, cannot motivate to find another. On top of these things, she feels incomplete because she was adopted as a child and has yet to locate her birth mother.

One evening, Jenny stumbles into the Institute of Affirmation, an adult education center whose motto is "The Answer Is Yes, Now What's Your Question?" As the novel unfolds, the school's hokey positivity, embodied in its appealing director Michael--usually dressed in purple bike shorts and pink ballet slippers--seeps into Jenny, despite her resistance, just the way that Southern California sun can eventually warm and win over some New Englanders' hearts. At the school she directs a play and takes miracle-making workshops on the side. All this eventually leads to the reawakening of her marriage and her spirit. In the end, Jenny discovers truths like this one: "If you stay with someone long enough, it's quite possible that you will fall out of love with him. And then if you stay just a little longer, you might just fall back in." Resisting the temptation to wallow in hot-button sensationalism, Lewis instead injects The Answer Is Yes with a happy, albeit sometimes New Age-y, self-awareness, which makes for a novel of hope and comfort. --Katherine Alberg

From Publishers Weekly

If Life's Little Instruction Book were a novel it would be this unapologetically optimistic story of a young woman trying to get her life on track. Displaced from her job as a Cambridge, Mass., bank loan officer, lonely in her new surroundings in San Diego with her biologist husband's attention devoted to his research, Jenny Brown wanders into the Institute of Affirmation, where classes like "Positive Ways to Say No" and "Make a Wish" meet. Seated in the back of the "Making Magic and Miracles" seminar, she writes down her three most fervent desires: a happy marriage, a job she loves and a reunion with her birth mother. Then she clumsily begins to make each fantasy real, using the Institute's three-step method: (1) Pray, (2) Work hard and, if nothing happens, (3) Give up. Supporting Jenny's quest are her adopted mother, who flies in on her own jet to nurture and listen and then flies out again, and Michael, the Institute's attractive director, who pops up from nowhere whenever needed. Whimsical course descriptions, a chatty narrative and occasional moments of slapstick provide enough good-natured satire to disarm the most cynical reader. Lewis (But I Love You Anyway, etc.) reveals with gentle irony the gap between what people say they want and what they do. Her unpretentious novel, aimed at evoking an empathetic smile and maybe a tear, achieves its goal with ease. Author tour; rights: Elaine Markson.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1st edition (July 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151003262
• ISBN-13: 978-0151003266
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,177,348 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Open your heart- you won't regret it!, April 9, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Answer Is Yes (Hardcover)

From the thoroughly engaging cover design, to the last loopy course description at the Institute of Affirmation, I loved everything about this book. I normally do not fall for uplifting and positive books, (I tend toward obsessed, psychotic themes as a rule) but Sara Lewis captures me. She manages to present characters who at first glance seem nice and easy, but gives them such a warm depth that they stay with me. (Her previous book But I Love You Anyway still has me pining for a cozy, drive through copy shop geared towards moms with small children!) Unlike the earlier post who forgot everything after reading it, I find myself coming back to some of the ideas months after I read the book. I was prompted to write a review because I just sent The Answer is Yes to a friend who needs to hear YES and I remembered reading a dismissive review when I first ordered it. I felt I should speak up for those of us on the other side. It is a lovely book that worked its way into my heart. Let it work its way into yours.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Yes Yes Yes, December 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Answer Is Yes: A Novel (Paperback)

I became aware of this book through a radio essay by the author about her efforts to promote her books. She deserves the recognition! I love books with great character development and in "The Answer is Yes" the reader gets to know the main character the same way she gets to know her friends, a little bit at a time. We are casual acqaintences first and close friends later. But we are always enganged and committed to these characters. This book may not have received the attention it deserves because it is about personal issues more than about political or social issues, but the personal isssues are ones that are important to most of us. You should read this book and so should Oprah.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great upbeat comfy read, September 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Answer Is Yes (Hardcover)

Sara Lewis has this great writing style - so immediately immersible, light, funny, and reassuring. I liked this book so much that I went back and got Heart Conditions and But I Love You Anyway. Do yourself a favor and read them all. I don't usually read "light" books...more typically I'm a fan of more heavy, "literary" stuff. However, I'm glad I discovered this author. Now, I only wish she'd write more, since I've exhausted her supply! There's also something inherently comforting about her writing. I love curling up every night with the familiar characters before I go to sleep. Just a terrific, absorbing read! And, actually, I think But I love You Anyway is my favorite book of hers...i'm still not finished with it, though, so that could change...read them all!