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Multiple Choice [Hardcover]

Claire Cook (Author)
3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)


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Book Description

June 17, 2004
March Monroe and her daughter Olivia are going to college. Not together at the same school, of course, just at the same time. March knows that Olivia is going, naturally, since she and her husband have just made their first exorbitant tuition payment. But Olivia doesn’t exactly know the arrangement . . . yet. It’s not as if March plans never to tell her; she just figures she’ll wait a bit––until they’ve had a little time to miss each other. So imagine Olivia’s surprise when one day she shows up for training at a local radio station and finds out that one of the other interns is . . . her mother.

Sharing an internship with her royally ticked-off daughter is not March’s only new challenge. Among the multiple decisions on her mind are what to do about a slightly tired marriage, a fourteen-year-old son who probably won’t be speaking to her for much longer, and a midlife crush, not to mention Quantum Physics and You––the class that just might put her over the edge. Laugh-out-loud funny, Multiple Choice is an effervescent novel of family life that will strike a chord with women everywhere––whether they have kids in college or are just now choosing their own majors. Required summer reading!


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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A midlife back-to-school adventure propels a suburban housewife into an unlikely radio career in Cook's third novel, set on the South Shore of Massachusetts. March Monroe is the spunky protagonist who left college life behind to marry a civil engineer named Jeff and raise a daughter and son while working as an aerobics instructor, party planner and finally a life coach. With Olivia off to college and Jackson not far behind, March finally takes her husband up on his longstanding offer to send her back to school. The degree requires an internship, and when March explores her limited options she finds herself inadvertently working together with Olivia as fellow interns at a local radio station. Exploiting the friction between March and Olivia, handsome programming director David Callahan proposes that the two do a mother-daughter call-in show that quickly takes off and becomes popular. Cook wrings some humor out of family life, March's mild flirtation with Callahan and the back-to-school experience. But the story meanders, detouring into asides about family pets, the generation gap, the stresses of being overscheduled and other typical suburban family disasters. Despite (or because of) the stabs at domestic insight, the cluttered result reads like warmed-over Erma Bombeck.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

After getting her daughter, Olivia, off to the local university, March decides to complete her own degree in something "exotic and multisyllabic." Unable to wangle her way out of the required internship, March selects a position at a local radio station and at the first intern meeting discovers Olivia, another intern. Mother and daughter can now fight again on a daily basis and do so to the delight of the station staff. Their squabbling leads to hosting a radio show. March's life is full of other frustrations. Her thoughtless husband complains about household tasks and forgets to tune in to March and Olivia's show. Her best friend won't let March live down a kitty-litter-in-the-oven incident. A sweet and humorous suburban domestic comedy with likable characters will have readers firmly in March's corner. However, they may be left wondering when March will finally grow the backbone that threatens to emerge in every chapter (and make things interesting) and feel let down by an ending that just appears. Kaite Mediatore
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 240 pages
  • Publisher: Viking Adult; 1ST edition (June 17, 2004)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0670033308
  • ISBN-13: 978-0670033300
  • Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #654,868 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I can't believe I have 8 novels, with a 9th, Wallflower in Bloom, coming from Simon & Schuster Touchstone in June 2012! I also have one husband, two kids, one dog, and 7 brothers and sisters and I'm the bestselling author of Best Staged Plans, Seven Year Switch, The Wildwater Walking Club, Summer Blowout, Life's a Beach, Multiple Choice, Ready to Fall, and Must Love Dogs, which became a Warner Bros. movie starring Diane Lane and John Cusack.

I hope you'll visit http://ClaireCook.com, where you can read excerpts of all my novels and find book club questions. And make sure you check out my writing and reinvention pages, where I share everything I've learned so far.

Come hang out with me on my Facebook author page, too: http://www.facebook.com/ClaireCookauthorpage.

And follow me at http://Twitter.com/ClaireCookwrite. I'll follow you back!

Okay, here's the rest of my story:

After decades of procrastination, I wrote my first novel in my minivan outside my daughter's swim practice at five in the morning. It was published when I was 45, and at 50 I walked the red carpet at the Hollywood premiere of the adaptation of my second novel. Midlife rocks! I love telling my story, because I think so many women (and a few good men!) have buried dreams like mine. My advice: dust them off and go for it!

I love speaking to groups, and teaching reinvention workshops for women coming into their own at midlife. I love writing novels and feel incredibly lucky to get to do it for a living -- this is the career I almost didn't have!


 

Customer Reviews

18 Reviews
5 star:
 (3)
4 star:
 (5)
3 star:
 (4)
2 star:
 (4)
1 star:
 (2)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.2 out of 5 stars (18 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Just all right, April 30, 2005
This review is from: Multiple Choice (Hardcover)
This fluffy little book was just okay. Even though it was under 250 pages, by the time I was halfway done with it I was thinking, "hurry up already." I couldn't stand the passages with the daughter (which took up a large portion of the book) - she was such a spoiled, snotty, hard-to-take girl. Totally unlikeable and not at all sympathetic to this reader. I've learned that if the first book I read by an author is "just okay", I'm not going to make the mistake of trying to read something else by the same author in hopes that the next one is better. I'm cutting my losses with this one.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Snoozer !!, July 13, 2006
This review is from: Multiple Choice (Paperback)
I thought Must Love Dogs was a cute book. It had humor, and was entertaining to read.

This story had the potential to be entertaining. Mother daughter relationships are always full of ups and downs. However, this book never went anywhere. Olivia, the daughter, was an annoying brat. Her mom, March wasn't very interesting. The dad and brother had nothing to contribute (unless you count the whole finger nail clipper dilema interesting...not). Whats the point of this story???!!

I kept waiting for something to happen. Nothing did. Except....I fell asleep.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Not worth reading, February 17, 2010
By 
Blueberry mom (Middle of nothing and everything) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Multiple Choice (Paperback)
I enjoyed Life's A Beach so I picked up this book without even reading the sleeve. I am so disappointed. I can't stand the bratty daughter. I can't feel for this mother who allows her daughter to treat her so badly. I don't understand why she couldn't/didn't tell her that she was going back to school. None of the characters hold my interest. I am glad I just borrowed this book and didn't spend a cent on it. Very very not worth it. Bleh!
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Inside This Book (learn more)
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First Sentence:
My daughter, Olivia, and I were going to college. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
directionality coach, intern meeting, other interns, chocolate martini
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
March Monroe, David Callahan, Karyn's Karmic Korner, Olde Colony, Rocky Point, George Dickerman, Mother's Day, Phish Food, Dick Man, Dolly Parton, George Clooney, New Zealand, Piggly Wiggly, The Dawn of Greek Civilization, Water's Edge, Zebra-Thong Girl
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