April & Oliver: A Novel (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this memorable debut, Callahan offers a uniquely funereal love story that focuses on a stagnant friendship-turned-untenable romance between unlikely life-long friends. To deal with the death of her immediate family, as well as the scars of childhood abuse, April assumes the role of the jaded wild child; Oliver, her once-inseparable childhood companion, has become her polar opposite, an engaged law student poised for success. Estranged during Oliver's college years, the two reconnect with troubling results. Callahan's descriptions are vivid, and often paired with charming flashbacks to more innocent times, providing stark contrast to the tumultuous course of April and Oliver's young-adult lives. Callahan's narrative takes some supporting-character detours from the principles' love-hate relationship, including an abusive boyfriend; a manipulative and dangerous family friend, and April's strong-but-slipping Nana. Callahan's poetic style and grasp of emotion gives proper weight to April's loss and Oliver's secrets, and is sure to engage, sadden, and enthrall readers, especially in a bittersweet, somewhat surprising finale.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by Carrie Brown Tess Callahan's first novel, "April & Oliver," offers up young lovers who are all bad timing and botched encounters and smoldering passion. Childhood friends, the two are separated by time and an unhappy shared history, but they come together again when April's beloved younger brother dies in a car accident. By then, unfortunately, there is another woman in the picture; decent Oliver, who is in law school, is engaged to Bernadette, who teaches disabled children with saintly joy, but it is troubled and troubling April whom Oliver can't forget. With her unstudied sexiness, vulnerability and intelligence, April exerts an irresistible attraction: She's a girl in need of protection from her own grief and bad choices, and Oliver wants desperately to help her. In trying to persuade us of the caliber of this couple's response to each other, Callahan's prose is occasionally overwrought. There's a little too much electricity rippling across skin, a little too much warmth radiating from thighs. Oliver's jaw is chiseled, and April smells sometimes like the sea, sometimes like "grass after heavy rain." At one point, Oliver's eyes are described as "luminous as glacial ice, those radiant cobalt crevices lit from within." This kind of description focuses our attention on the least complicated (and, in the end, least interesting) aspect of love: its superficial thrill. When Oliver's brother says impatiently, "Just get it out of your systems already. It's only sex, you know," we're inclined to agree with him. But Callahan wants the couple's attraction to be about more than sex. April and Oliver are also soul mates, and many readers will find their bumpy road compelling, a sensitive and emotional account of two people grappling with the complicated force of mutual attraction when it strikes the right people at the wrong time.
Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing; First Printing edition (June 3, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446540595
• ISBN-13: 978-0446540599
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (52 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #85,713 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hopeful, June 2, 2009

By	J. Shetrone (Christiansburg, VA United States) - See all my reviews

This debut novel is about a lot of things... grief, family, the ebb and flow of friendship (especially those you once thought will last a lifetime), and love (some of it unrequited). I could appreciate the delicateness of a friendship with someone of the opposite sex, and how easy it is to let friendship fade away once life starts to take you in different directions. April and Oliver are unceremoniously thrown back into each others lives following the death of her brother, and everyone seems to expect them to be able to pick up right where they left off. Unfortunately, they're not the same people they used to be. There is a tug of war between the two of them as April tries to keep her distance, ashamed of who she has turned out to be but clueless as to how to change and as Oliver looks to her for answers to his own questions. I thought it was incredibly sad that the family decided to keep Buddy's death from Nana - doesn't she deserve to grieve too? - but it did add another layer to the story. The ending here falls short of happy (which I think would have felt contrived), but it is nicely hopeful.

24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars April & Oliver: Characters you won't forget, June 8, 2009

By	Dorothy Grant Cohen "Dottie4Books" (By the Ocean in Massachusetts) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The very first chapter hooked me and never let go. The writing is beautiful and the characters are so well-developed you don't want to stop reading yet you don't want to read it too fast either. When April's brother dies and her childhood best friend Oliver returns with his fiance, their unrequited sexual tension is palpable. However, April's made some bad choices in men and she even though she knows it she doesn't feel she deserves better because of her history of abuse at the hands of a family friend. Oliver tries to help her but he has secrets of his own that keep him stuck in the past and his fiance Bernadette is sandwiched in the middle of these two starcrossed, uncomsummated lovers.
The ending, though satisfying, leaves me thinking about April & Oliver and what they are doing now. Unforgettable characters that will stay with me for awhile.

I recommend April & Oliver to anyone who likes to get pulled into a story; this book has it all. There is some violence and sexual abuse, but ultimately it is a story of love, loss and relationships.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing April & Oliver, June 6, 2009

By	Rachel Leibman (Montclair, NJ) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I stayed up late last night reading this novel. I read it for most of the day and made myself stop from time to time just so I could stretch it out. I loved it totally - the beautiful story, the amazing writing, the satisfying ending. April, Oliver and the other characters were real and believably sympathetic. The story was grabbing and compelling - not in the least bit boring. I haven't felt this way about a book for so long. Yes!