Dedication: A Novel [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Emma McLaughlin (Author), Nicola Kraus (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 2007

Kate Hollis’s ex-boyfriend’s face plasters newsstands and TV, the Internet, and the multiplex. Jake Sharpe is one of the biggest recording stars on the planet, and every song he’s famous for is about Kate and their high school relationship. For more than a decade his soundtrack has chased her—from the gym to the supermarket, from the dentist’s office to the bars. Now thirty-year-old Kate gets the call that Jake has finally landed back in their Vermont hometown for an MTV special. The moment she has been waiting for has arrived.

Dedication is a poignant, humorous tale about modern celebrity obsession and coming of age during the divorce boom. With flawless depictions of the 1980s, a charismatic heroine, and their signature biting wit, McLaughlin and Kraus offer up another lively and hilarious tale of a smart young woman looking for satisfaction in the chaos of contemporary culture.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The team behind The Nanny Diaries and Citizen Girl returns with another breezy chick lit portrayal of a woman wronged and, eventually, empowered. When Kate Hollis's childhood chum Laura calls from their Vermont hometown and announces the arrival of Jake Sharpe, a mega rock star and Kate's high school sweetheart, Kate jumps on a plane from Charleston, S.C. (where she's a sustainable development consultant) and makes for idyllic Croton Falls. Through it's been 13 years, Kate still has a primal need to confront not only the boy who abandoned her before the senior prom, but the musical pirate who used her personal life as fodder for his most celebrated songs and cheated his high school bandmates out of deserved recognition and royalties. Chapters switch back and forth between the present and the pivotal middle and high school years where Kate (then Katie) and Jake did the first-love thing: readers get to see Jake's growing he's-just-not-that-into-you-ness and how (surprise!) their Zima-fueled love (it was the '90s) was idealized. While one spends much of the book wanting to shout at Kate to give it up, go back to Charleston and get on with it, McLaughlin and Kraus do get the nagging need for closure in even the shallowest relationships comically right. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

McLaughlin and Kraus, authors of the popular novel The Nanny Diaries(2002), venture back to the 1980s in their third novel. Kate Hollis fell in love with Jake Sharpe in grade school, dated him in high school, and at 30, has yet to get over him. How can she when Jake, now a rock star with several hit singles to his name, has spent the last 10 years singing about her and about their relationship? When Kate hears that Jake has returned to their hometown with his new fiancee in tow, she jumps on a plane, ready to confront him for exploiting their personal memories in his quest for superstardom. But when Kate sees him again, all her old feelings churn to the surface, and her resolve weakens further when she learns he feels the same. But just as the novel barrels toward what appears to be the most cliched of endings, the authors pull out a surprise and give the reader, and Kate, a completely unexpected and wholly satisfying conclusion. With the movie version of The Nanny Diaries due out this spring, expect considerable interest in the authors' latest outing. Kristine Huntley
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 455 pages
• Publisher: Thorndike Press (August 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786297166
• ISBN-13: 978-0786297160
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (73 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,376,608 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Revenge, Forgiveness, or Closure?, June 4, 2007

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Tamela Mccann "taminator40" (Nashville, TN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dedication (Hardcover)

If someone you loved had wronged you so intensely that it changed the course of your life, would you seek revenge? Or forgiveness? Or just closure? This is the central theme of writing duo Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus's excellent new novel, Dedication. The pair spin an entirely believable tale about spurned love and anger that burns unabated for thirteen years, and they bring it full circle with an excellent ending.

Katie Hollis first falls "in love" with Jake Sharpe in sixth grade, and their relationship is a series of ups and downs over the course of their school years. Told in chapters that alternate between 2005 and those growing up years, we follow the development of the characters as Jake begins to realize his love of music and Katie's family life falls apart. Then the unthinkable happens: Jake hits the big time, and he leaves Katie and his friends behind, not even recognizing his fellow band mates' contributions on his first hit single and thus denying them any of the significant royalties. When Jake finally returns to his hometown 13 years on, Katie is alerted and, in true hell hath no fury form, she finds herself ready to confront him and "make him regret his entire existence"...or does she? Can she actually let the past go in order to form a future?

This is a page-turner of a novel, with lots of little 80s details thrown in and an enduring love story as the backbone. It will make you question what you would do if facing the same obsession; would you be the bigger person or would you fight back for the life taken from you? And is it all worth it? Definitely a good summer read, and a heart-wrenching one at that. Recommended.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Spectacularly Funny and Smart, June 5, 2007

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MSF (NYC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dedication (Hardcover)

I absolutely loved it. It has all the humor and intelligence of the Nanny Diaries and Citizen Girl and deals with a topic everyone can relate to: the desire to be able to go back in time and right the cosmic wrongs of adolescence. While this book could be very funny while staying on that topic, it manages to weave in a very real and complicated family dynamic that adds a deep level of complexity to the book. The book splices from the past to the present and yet never loses the reader who is eagerly awaiting the outcomes of the interconnected plots. I loved it and would highly recommend it!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Second Chances, August 1, 2007

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Donna A. Berrodin "Donna B." (Moorestown, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dedication (Hardcover)

This book was great and so much better than their previous, "Citizen Girl"! Not hefty lit or complete fluff, for me it was the perfect in-between. Loved the characters (and their true-to-life angst and stroll-down-memory-lane bad fashion moments!)and her missed connections with Jake over the years, culminating in losing her heart to him and his abandonment of her the night of their high school senior prom, on his way to find fame and fortune in the music business.
I thought the authors did a great job with their history playing itself out in Jake's songs, and gave you a chance to envision how you too would react if you were given the opportunity to resolve things with The One Who Got Away. I was torn about how I wanted it to end, but found myself very satisfied with the way it played out!