• Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2022 March #1
  *Starred Review* Within two weeks, Donald Trump was elected president, the Chicago Cubs won the World Series, and Bud Sullivan died. The Sullivan family felt like the world itself had tipped on its axis, but JP Sullivan's, the family restaurant, served as their emotional and physical anchor. The restaurant was Bud's legacy, and the next generation of Sullivans had learned everything they knew about restaurant life from him. Four Sullivan cousins, Teddy, Jane, Gretchen, and Riley, find themselves increasingly unsure about their individual futures but confident that walking into JP Sullivan's will always feel like home. Close (The Hopefuls, 2016) drops readers smack into Oak Park, a leafy Chicago suburb, and lets them hear the hiss of fryers hitting hot oil and catch an ice-cold Old Style sliding across the bar. The Sullivans are a close-knit Catholic family full of guilt and love and long-standing grudges, but Close lets each character's unique personality shine. Fans of Tracey Lange's We Are the Brennans (2021) and Taylor Jenkins Reid's Malibu Rising (2021) will fall in love with these maddening, loving, stubborn relatives. Setting nostalgia against progress, tradition against rebirth, Close outlines the cousins' grief and personal growth as they work with, and against, one another. Copyright 2022 Booklist Reviews.

JENNIFER CLOSE is the best-selling author of Girls in White Dresses, The Smart One, and The Hopefuls. Born and raised on the North Shore of Chicago, she is a graduate of Boston College and received her MFA in Fiction Writing from the New School. She now lives in Washington, DC, and teaches creative writing at Catapult.