I was on a panel at the Baltimore Book Festival with Adena Halpern when Dating Amy came out and she was promoting her first book Target Underwear and a Vera Wang Gown.
Yesterday I read her most recent release 29.
It’s about a 75-year-old woman who wishes to be 29 for a day. She of course gets her wish and ends up hanging out with her granddaughter, experiencing life in Philadelphia as a beautiful young woman with no aches and pains, and maybe even has a chance to start over in love.
On the way she reflects back on her life. Does she have regrets? Of course! Can she rectify them? Maybe.
I read it in a day, which seems fitting since the novel encompasses a day.
Halpern lives in Hollywood and this book reads like a movie: fast-paced with a lot of snappy dialogue.
At its heart, 29 is a book about womens’ relationships: mother, daughter, daughter’s daughter, longtime best friend. It all works.
Most of all, it was thrilling to read a chick-lit style story with a septuagenerian narrator. Please, please give me more fun paperbacks where the main character isn’t a twenty-something. Although in this book she has the figure of one for a day.
