Summary and Reviews of The True and Outstanding Adventures of The Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson

The True and Outstanding Adventures of The Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson

The True and Outstanding Adventures of The Hunt Sisters

by Elisabeth Robinson
  • Critics' Consensus (9):
  • Readers' Rating (13):
  • First Published:
  • Jan 1, 2004, 336 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Jan 2005, 352 pages
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About This Book

Book Summary

This debut novel is heartbreaking and hilarious, somber and delightful, and imbued with all the love one sister can feel for another, and all the frustration too.

Olivia Hunt's Hollywood life has come to a grinding halt. A hotshot producer accustomed to first-class amenities, Olivia has just been unceremoniously fired after her last movie tanked. Her boyfriend, Michael, has dumped her. And she's not the blonde she used to be: dark roots are coming in at an alarming rate. Her next project is a well-crafted suicide note.

Then she finds out what real trouble is. Olivia's beloved sister, Maddie, is seriously ill. Maddie is living the life Olivia ran like hell from--she's happily married to her high school sweetheart and still living in the small town where they grew up. Stunned and bewildered, Olivia catches the next plane back home.

Maddie's idealism and optimism have always driven Olivia crazy. Even now, when the odds aren't good, Maddie never doubts she'll beat them. But Olivia wonders, is hope just a way of kidding yourself? As if to answer that question, Maddie challenges Olivia to produce her dream film, the impossible-to-make Don Quixote. Olivia's life then becomes a tangle of movie sets, IV drips, and letters to Michael asking him what went wrong and if they might try again. When Maddie takes a turn for the worse, Olivia has to face the hardest choices life can offer. How can one person's heart so truly be in three places at once?

Imbued with all the love one sister can feel for another--and all the frustration too--The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters is heartbreaking and hilarious, somber and delightful, and full of wisdom, joy, and grace. It is a brilliantly written debut about the unlimited possibilities of love and how hope can grow in even the darkest places

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Reviews

Media Reviews

Marie Claire Magazine
...will have you speed-dialing your best friend to share this great read.

Time - Lev Grossman
Likely to be the first literary surprise of 2004....Tough, tender, and tearful, The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters helps us make sense of it all.

Time Out New York
Entertaining....Robinson's take on Tinsletown is exact and carefully shaded. . . . It's a subtle reminder of the amount of hope and humor needed to counter the panic and helplessness when life unravels on all fronts.

New York Times Book Review
Wryly effective, capturing the momentum of family sorrow, the ways in which people can care for each other without ever quite coming to terms.

The New York Times - Emily Nussbaum
In both her movie and her life, Olivia struggles to provide her sister and herself with an ideal ending -- a perfect moment that will satisfy everyone. But, finally, this book is a paean to the compromises made out of love Olivia may be an unreliable narrator, but as a storyteller she comes through in the clutch.

Kirkus Reviews
It's bright, it's clever, and it's going to be a major hit a smashing success with the press and the public....Robinson is enormously skilled at pushing the emotional buttons, but an aftertaste of manipulation lingers. There's also something self-serving about the writing, something frankly very Hollywood about it. But will it sell? Is there balm in Gilead?

Booklist - Kristine Huntley
Sparkling with humor and beauty, the novel is ultimately a testament to the bond between the sisters, and the strength of both Olivia and Maddie.

Library Journal
Olivia balances a troubled sister, aging parents, and a re-igniting Hollywood career in this admirable debut.

Publishers Weekly
Olivia's cynicism, compassion and loyalty come through as funny, real and inspiring, and the novel's epistolary format is smoothly employed. Moving but never maudlin, this is an accomplished debut.

Author Blurb Jonathan Franzen, author of The Corrections
This is one of the funniest Hollywood novels I've ever read.

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Read-Alikes

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