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<center><small>To purchase from this site please use a browser that supports frames.</small><p></center> <div> <div > <div id="wrap"> <div id="mainwrap"> <div id="main"> <div id="header"> <table> <tr> <td><a href="/shop/books/argyle_store.php?astore_url=amazon.com/argyle-books-20/" id="mainheadertitle">Book Store</a></td> </tr> </table> </div> <div id="mainsubheader"> <div id="contentsubheader"> <div id="subheaderlinks"> </div> <div id="subheadertitle">Product Details</div> </div> </div> <div id="content"> <table cellspacing="0" id="detailheader"> <tr> <td id="detailImage"> <div class="relative"> </div> </td><td> <div id="titleAndByLine"> <span>Fly Away Home: A Novel<br> <span class="by">By Jennifer Weiner</span> </span> </div> <table id="prices"></table> <br> <p></p>Average customer review: <br> </td> </tr> </table> <script type="text/javascript"> function registerNamespace(ns) { var parts = ns.split("."); var root = window; for(var i = 0; i < parts.length; i++) { if(!root[parts[i]]) { root[parts[i]] = new Object(); } root = root[parts[i]]; } } registerNamespace('Associates.Util'); Associates.Util.getElementsByTagAndClass = function(tag, class_name, parent_element) { if(!parent_element){ parent_element = document; } var tags = parent_element.getElementsByTagName(tag); var class_tags = new Array(); var class_regex = new RegExp("\\b" + class_name + "\\b"); for (var i = 0; i < tags.length; i++) { if(tags[i].className.match(class_regex)) { class_tags.push(tags[i]); } } return class_tags; } Associates.Util.findAncestor = function(child, test) { var test_func; if(typeof test == 'object') { test_func = function(obj){ return obj == test }; } else if (typeof test == 'string') { test_func = function(obj){ return obj.nodeName == test }; } else { test_func = test; } while(child && !test_func(child)) { child = child.parentNode; } return child; } Associates.Util.getSelectedRadio = function(form, radioName) { if (typeof form == 'string') { form = document.forms[form]; } for (var i = 0; i < form[radioName].length; i++) { if (form[radioName][i].checked) { return form[radioName][i].value; } } return undefined; } function AttachEventListener(object, event, handler, useCapture) { if( !useCapture ) { useCapture = false; } if( object.addEventListener ) { object.addEventListener(event, handler, useCapture); } else { object.attachEvent('on' + event, handler); } } registerNamespace('Assoc.DOMEvent'); Assoc.DOMEvent.AddHandler = function(object, event, handler, context) { var event_handler; if(context) event_handler = function(event){ handler.call(context, event) }; else event_handler = handler; AttachEventListener(object, event, event_handler); } function GetEventTarget(event) { return (event.target)? event.target : event.srcElement; } //borrowed from quirksmode. Stops event bubbling. function StopEventPropagation(event) { if(!event) { event = window.event; } //MSIE event.cancelBubble = true; //w3c if(event.stopPropagation) { event.stopPropagation(); } } function StopEventDefault(event) { if(!event) { event = window.event; } //MSIE event.returnValue = false; //w3c if(event.preventDefault) { event.preventDefault() }; } //does both StopEventPropogation and StopEventDefault function StopEvent(event) { StopEventDefault(event); StopEventPropagation(event); } function mouseOverFromElement(event) { return (event.relatedTarget)? event.relatedTarget : event.fromTarget; } function mouseOutToElement(event) { return (event.relatedTarget)? event.relatedTarget : event.toTarget; } var wImages; var link = document.getElementById('imageViewerLink'); function openImageViewer(event) { if (wImages == null || wImages.closed) { wImages = window.open(link.href, 'ImageView', 'width=625,height=700,scrollbars,resizable'); } else { wImages.location = link.href; } wImages.focus(); return false; } AttachEventListener(link, 'click', openImageViewer); </script> <div id="productDescription"> <span>Product Description</span> <p>Sometimes all you can do is fly away home . . . <P>When Sylvie Serfer met Richard Woodruff in law school, she had wild curls, wide hips, and lots of opinions. Decades later, Sylvie has remade herself as the ideal politician’s wife—her hair dyed and straightened, her hippie-chick wardrobe replaced by tailored knit suits. At fifty-seven, she ruefully acknowledges that her job is staying twenty pounds thinner than she was in her twenties and tending to her husband, the senator. <P>Lizzie, the Woodruffs’ younger daughter, is at twenty-four a recovering addict, whose mantra HALT (Hungry? Angry? Lonely? Tired?) helps her keep her life under control. Still, trouble always seems to find her. Her older sister, Diana, an emergency room physician, has everything Lizzie failed to achieve—a husband, a young son, the perfect home—and yet she’s trapped in a loveless marriage. With temptation waiting in one of the ER’s exam rooms, she finds herself craving more. <P>After Richard’s extramarital affair makes headlines, the three women are drawn into the painful glare of the national spotlight. Once the press conference is over, each is forced to reconsider her life, who she is and who she is meant to be. <P><P>Written with an irresistible blend of heartbreak and hilarity, <I>Fly Away Home </i>is an unforgettable story of a mother and two daughters who after a lifetime of distance finally learn to find refuge in one another.</p> </div> <div id="productDetails"> <hr/> <span>Product Details</span> <ul> <li>Amazon Sales Rank: #33 in eBooks </li> <li>Published on: 2010-06-28</li> <li>Released on: 2010-07-13</li> <li>Format: Kindle Book</li> <li>Number of items: 1</li> </ul> </div> <hr> <span>Editorial Reviews</span> <div id="editorialReviews"> <p> <span class="reviewtitle">Review</span> <br> “Unflappably fun… Hilarious… In Jennifer Weiner's luscious new novel, Fly Away Home, a political wife's predicament is the catalyst for a highly entertaining story… The message is choosing to live an authentic life. As always, Weiner gives us a woman who stands taller, curvier, and happier when she does just that.” —<I>USA Today</i><br /><br />"This is summer reading at its best: entertaining and full of insight into relationships and how they change" — <I>People </i>(3.5 out of 4 stars)<br /><br />"Fresh, nuanced... Weiner wryly and sensitively shows the trade-offs we all make to maintain our relationships." —<I>Parade</i><br /><br />“This best-selling author proves again that she writes the best page-turners around.” – <I>Elle</i><br /><br />"Witty and smart" —<I>O </i>Magazine<br /><br />“<I>Fly Away Home</i> is Weiner’s best offering in years. The book is well written, a page turner and timely.” —<I>Associated Press</i><br /><br />“The quintessential beach read!” —<I>Columbus Dispatch</i><br /><br />"Sharp, hysterical, thoughtful. . .Jennifer Weiner's latest treat hits the spot" —<I>The Providence Journal</i><br /><br /><I>“Fly Away Home</i> is the book to pack this summer. The latest from Jennifer Weiner has it all.” — <I>St. Petersburg Times</i><br /><br />"Smart and juicy" —<I>Good Housekeeping</i> </p> <p> <span class="reviewtitle">About the Author</span> <br> <b>Jennifer Weiner</b> is the author of seven novels: <I>Good in Bed</i>, <I>In Her Shoes</i>, which was made into a major motion picture, <I>Little Earthquakes</i>, <I>Goodnight Nobody</i>, <I>Certain Girls</i>, <I>Best Friends Forever</i>, and <I>Fly Away Home</i>,<I> </i>as well as the short story collection, <I>The Guy Not Taken</i>. A graduate of Princeton University, she lives in Philadelphia with her family. Visit her website at www.jenniferweiner.com. </p> <p> <span class="reviewtitle">Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.</span> <br> <div><p align="center"><b><b>SYLVIE</b></b><P>Breakfast in five-star hotels was always the same. This was what Sylvie Serfer Woodruff thought as the elevator descended from the sixth floor and opened onto the gleaming expanse of the lobby of the Four Seasons in Philadelphia. After thirty-two years of marriage, fourteen of them as the wife of the senior senator from New York, after visits to six continents and some of the major cities of the world, perhaps she should have been able to come up with something more profound about human nature and common ground and the ties that bind us all, but there it was—her very own insight. Maybe it wasn’t much, but it wasn’t nothing. If pressed, Sylvie also had some very profound and trenchant observations to make about executive airport lounges.<P>She took a deep breath, uncomfortably aware of the way the waistband of her skirt dug into her midriff. Then she slipped her hand into her husband’s and walked beside him, past the reception desk toward the restaurant, thinking that it was a good thing, a reassuring thing, that no matter where you were, London or Los Angeles or Dubai, if you were in a good hotel, a Four Seasons or a Ritz-Carlton—and, these days, when she and Richard traveled they were almost always in a Four Seasons or a Ritz-Carlton—your breakfast would never surprise you.<P>There would be menus, offered today by a girl in a trim black suit who stood behind a podium in the plushly carpeted entryway, beaming at the patrons as if their arrival represented the very pinnacle of her day and possibly of her lifetime. Richard would wave the menus away. “We’ll do the buffet,” he’d announce, without asking whether there was one. There always was. “Of course, sir,” their waiter or the maitre d’ or today’s black-suited girl would murmur in approval. They’d be led through a richly appointed room, past the heavy silk drapes, elaborately tassled and tied, past mahogany sideboards and expensively dressed diners murmuring over their coffee. Richard would deposit his briefcase and his newspapers at their table, and then they’d proceed to the buffet.<P>There’d be an assortment of fresh fruit, slices of melon, peeled segments of grapefruit and orange and sliced kiwis, arranged like jewels on white china platters. There were always croissants, chocolate and plain, always muffins, bran and blueberry and corn, always bagels (yes, even in Dubai), always shot glasses layered with yogurt and muesli, always slices of bread and English muffins, arrayed next to a toaster, and chafing dishes of scrambled eggs and bacon and sausage and breakfast potatoes, and there was always a chef in a toque and a white jacket, making omelets. Richard would ask for an omelet (spinach, as a nod to health, and mushrooms and Cheddar cheese—he liked onions, but couldn’t risk a day of bad breath). Once the order was placed, he’d hand off his plate to Sylvie and return to their table, to his <I>New York Times</i> and his <I>Wall Street Journal</i> and the eternal consolation of his BlackBerry, and Sylvie would wait for his food.<P>The first time her mother, the Honorable Selma Serfer, had seen Sylvie perform this maneuver, she’d stared at her daughter with her mouth open and a dot of Crimson Kiss lipstick staining her incisor. “Seriously?” she’d asked, in her grating Brooklyn accent. Sylvie had tried to shush her. Selma, as always, had refused to be shushed. “Seriously, Sylvie? This is what you do? You fetch his eggs?”<P>“He’s busy,” Sylvie murmured, shifting the plate to her right hand and tucking a lock of hair behind her ear with her left. “I don’t mind.” She knew what her mother was thinking without the Honorable Selma, first in her class (and one of seven women) at Yale Law, former chief judge of the state of New York, having to say a word. Sylvie should mind, and Sylvie should be busy, too. Like her mother, Sylvie had gone to Barnard and Yale. Sylvie was meant to have followed in Selma’s footsteps straight up to the Supreme Court, or at the very least practiced law for more than two years. Selma and David Serfer’s only child had been intended for better things than marriage, motherhood, committee work for various charities, and collecting her husband’s breakfast.<P><I>Ah, well</i>, she thought, as the chef swirled melted butter in a pan. She was happy with her life, even if it didn’t please her mother. She loved her husband, she respected what he’d accomplished, she felt good about the part that she’d played in his career. Besides, she knew it could be worse. In cities all over the world, women went hungry, were beaten or abused; women watched their children suffer. Sylvie had seen them, had touched their hands and bounced their babies on her lap. It seemed churlish to complain about the occasional small indignity, about the hours she’d spent campaigning, face smoothed into a pleasant expression, mouth set in a smile, hair straightened into an inoffensive shoulder-length bob, wearing hose that squeezed her middle and pumps that pinched her toes, standing behind her husband, saying nothing.<P>Normally, it didn’t bother her, but every so often, discontent rose up inside her, spurred by some unpleasant reminder of her unrealized potential. A few months ago, the forms for her thirty-fifth reunion at Barnard had arrived in her in-box. There’d been a survey, a series of questions about life after college. One of them was <I>Tell us how you spend your time. If you’re working, please describe your job</i>. Before she could stop herself, Sylvie had typed <I>My job is to stay on a diet so that I can fit into size-six St. John knit suits and none of the bloggers can say that my behind’s getting big</i>. She’d erased the words immediately, replacing them with a paragraph about her volunteer work, the funds she raised for the homeless and the ballet, breast cancer research and the library and the Museum of Modern Art. She’d added a sentence about her daughters: Diana, who was an emergency-room doctor right here in Philadelphia, and Lizzie, vexing Lizzie who’d given them such heartache, now several months sober (she didn’t mention that), with her hair restored to its original blond and all those horrible piercings practically closed. She’d added a final beat about how for the last fourteen years she had been lucky enough to travel the world in the company of her husband, Senator Richard Woodruff, D-NY. But sometimes, late at night, she thought that the truth was the first thing she’d written. Whatever ambition she’d possessed, whatever the dreams she’d once had, Sylvie Serfer Woodruff had grown up to be a fifty-seven-year-old professional dieter, a woman whose only real job now that her daughters were gone was staying twenty pounds thinner than she’d been in law school.<P>So she’d lost herself a little bit, she thought, as the chef sprinkled cheese into the pan. So life hadn’t been perfect; bad things had happened, mistakes had been made. But hadn’t they built something together, she and Richard, and Lizzie and Diana, and wasn’t that more important, more meaningful, than anything Sylvie could have done on her own? What kind of career would she have had, anyhow? She wasn’t as good a lawyer as her mother. She might have been quick, and smart and well-read, but her mind wasn’t built to spring and snap shut like a trap the way her mother’s was. She could admit, if only to herself, that she was bright but not terribly ambitious; that she lacked a certain something, aggression or tenacity or even just desire, that magical quality that would have lifted her from good to great. But she’d found a place for herself in the world. She’d raised her girls and been a help to her husband, a sounding board and a concierge, a scheduler and a speechwriter, a traveling companion and a co-campaigner. So what if every once in a while late at night she felt like all she had to show for her years on the planet were miles logged on a treadmill that took her nowhere and a number on the scale that was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain? So what if …<P>“Ma’am?” The chef was staring at her, spatula raised. The omelet sat in a perfectly browned half-circle in the center of the pan.<P>“Sorry,” she said, and held out the empty plate toward him like an orphan in a Dickens novel, an orphan asking for more.<P>He slid the omelet onto the plate. Sylvie collected the slices of whole-wheat bread she’d popped into the toaster. She added a pat of butter, a pot of marmalade, the wedges of cantaloupe that Richard would ignore, and a single slice of bacon, well-done, the way he preferred it (he’d want more than one slice, but there was his heart to consider). Richard was reading the Op-Ed page and talking on his phone, with a cup of coffee steaming at his elbow, so busy multitasking that he barely looked up. She set his food in front of him and tapped his shoulder. “Eat,” she said, and Richard smiled, put his arm around her waist, and gave her a quick squeeze.<P>“Thank you, dear,” he said, and she said, “You’re welcome,” then went back to gather her own joyless meal: fat-free yogurt, a single stewed prune, a mini-box of Special K, a glass of skim milk, and, as her reward, a scoop of the oatmeal she could never resist, deliciously creamy, the way it never got at home. She’d add a little butter, a swirl of brown sugar, a splash of cream, turning it into something that was more like pudding than breakfast.<P>She’d eaten only a few bites when Richard dropped his crumpled napkin over the remains of his eggs. He’d ignored the fruit, as she predicted, and the bacon was gone, the way she knew it would be. “All set?” he asked. She wasn’t. But she nodded, rising as he stood, gripping the starchy elbows of his suit ... </p> </div> <div id="customerReviews"> <hr> <span>Customer Reviews</span> <p> <span class="reviewtitle">4.5 Stars One of my favorite Weiner Novels</span> <br>Fly away home is the beautifully written story of Sylvie, a politicians wife, and her two daughters Diana and Lizzie. In the wake and aftermath of scandal these three women are forced to face the truth about themselves including who they are, who they want to be and what they want out of life. The women deal with past issues as well as present. Weiner does a wonderful job of taking the serious issues of commitment, self-esteem, identity and choices and mixing them with comical moments. <br /> <br />Meet the women of Fly Away Home: <br /> <br />Sylvie: Wife of Senator Richard Woodruff. Sylvie has spent her life in her husbands service, helping him, guiding him and focusing on him. After his affair is brought into the open, Sylvie must re-evaluate who she is and who she wants to be. She must make the biggest decision of all. Will she be able to trust and forgive? <br /> <br />Diana: The eldest daughter of Sylvie and Richard Woodruff. After watching her parents marriage, Diana has a very clear path for her life and how she wants it to be. While everything makes sense on paper, Diana forgets about the heart and love. When she is reminded her world is turned upside down and she must choose to love or not to love? Will she be happy? <br /> <br />Lizzie: (Elizabeth) The youngest daughter of the Woodruff's and the family screw-up. Returning from rehab, Lizzie is determined to be better, to make something of herself, and to stay clean. It seems the world doesn't want to make this easier for her, and her family isn't in the best state to help. Will she be able to overcome of one the hardest parts of her life? Will she learn from the rehab and will she survive the shock and surprises she will encounter along the way? <br /> <br />The novel is divided into three sections. Each section skillfully sets up the next and smoothly transitions into it. Each section is divided into chapters, entitled by the woman who narrates the chapter. The first section focuses on past memories as well as current happenings. The second section dives deeper into the issues of the women, each leading to the point of no return. The third and final section brings the three women together. They face the past, present and future together and discover where home truly is. <br /> <br />Jennifer Weiner did a wonderful job with this novel. Fly away home quickly moved its way up the list of my favorite novels by Weiner. She encompasses so many relationships and focuses on them throughout the book. It is skillfully written and will make you laugh as well as feel the emotions of each character. You will find yourself relating to each character in your own way and rooting for them to find comfort and happiness. Fly Away Home is a heartbreaking, insightful novel, full of humor and interpersonal relationships. It will easily become a novel you will not want to put down, a novel that will carry you through many emotions, a novel you simply wont want to end. <br /> <br />Reviewed for [...]</p> <p> <span class="reviewtitle">Too Much Anticipation?</span> <br>Maybe I was expecting too much? I have enjoyed Jennifer Weiner's works in the past. I really wanted to like this book, but I just finished and found myself saying... "blah." <br />Nothing happens. And at the same time, everything seems sadly predictable. Reading this is like eating cotton candy -- pretty promises but empty. <br />Maybe the point is that these scandals are commonplace now and the story is "no story." Because really, now that I'm done, I feel so let down and like I wasted time. <br />Sylvie continues to go through the motions the entire book. No wonder her husband sought somebody else. She's on autopilot and things don't seem to change. First she takes a swing at her philandering spouse. Then she says she'll be on t.v. She didn't even have a conversation (argument, conflict, upset) about the whole "stand by your man" bit -- in fact her man didn't even ask her to stand by him. Next she's hiding (in Connecticut?? ) and grocery shopping as therapy? She learns to cook overnight, a sensation on her first try. And that's the extent of her growth? <br />Some of this is rehashed headlines with bits and pieces of Grey's Anatomy, The Good Wife, and an after school special on what not to do when your kid is addicted (I can't believe her father asked her to make him a drink). Every daughter plot point was telegraphed in advance. I knew exactly what was going to happen (and it did). But I won't say what -- no spoilers (well, not much) on my watch. <br />So, yeah. This could be a beach read. Just don't get your hopes up. I'm still searching for the book of the summer.</p> <p> <span class="reviewtitle">not her best book</span> <br>I'm a big fan of Jennifer Weiner, and thoroughly enjoyed her past work. But this novel just didn't do it for me. I've read and reread her past books, so maybe this bothered me more than it would other people. But some of the scenes/lines in this book are too reminiscent of past books. For example, the scene in which Diana meets her husband is quite similar to the way Kelly (in Little Earthquakes) meets hers. Both women go out to get drunk immediately after being dumped, and then meet a sweet man in that bar who later becomes her future husband. Before they have sex, Jeff asks Lizzie "Is it safe?", the same exact line that Sam says to Lia (also in Little Earthquakes). There are about a thousand more ways a man could ask a woman if she's using some kind of birth control, no? I don't know, these examples just stood out and irked me. <br /> <br />The characters weren't easy to care about, either. For instance, I wanted to like the character of Lizzie, but she was too nonchalant about Jeff and about her pregnancy. I wanted to like Diana, but there were few and far between moments in the book where I could tell that she actually cared about her son. It seems like we were just told towards the end how much she loves him, but throughout the book the majority of her scenes she is not around him nor thinking of him. Maybe if there were more past scenes showing the characters' history, they would've been better developed and more likeable. And I won't even go in to Sylvie, who has a change of heart toward the end that seemingly came out of nowhere. <br /> <br />Finally, the book had its funny moments, but was not nearly as funny as her past efforts. Despite the criticisms above, I will continue to read Jennifer Weiner, books like In Her Shoes and Little Earthquakes were funny, fun, and hard to put down.</p> </div> </div> </div> <div id="footer"> <p> </p> <a href="/shop/books/argyle_store.php?astore_url=amazon.com/argyle-books-20/">Book Store</a> | | <a href="http://www.argyle.com" target="_top" rel="nofollow">Back to Argyle</a> <br/> <p> </p> </div> </div> <div id="sidebar"> <ul id="widget"> <li class="widget"> <div id="searchbrowse"> <form method="GET" action="/argyle-books-20/search/" onsubmit="return search(this);" style="margin-bottom:13px;"> <select name="node" class="searchwidget"> <option value="">Select Category</option> <option value="0" >Books</option> <option value="1" >Magazines</option> <option value="5" >Software</option> <option value="20" >Harry Potter</option> </select> <br> <input id="searchwidgetkeywords" name="keywords" type="text" value="" width="100" size="25"> <input type="image" src="http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/buttons/go-orange-trans._V192189913_.gif" width="21" alt="Search" align="absmiddle" value="go" id="searchbtn" height="21" border="0" /> <input type="hidden" name="preview" value="" /> </form> <div id="homelink"></div> <hr style="margin-top:13px;"> <div id="browsetitle">Browse by Category</div> <a href="/shop/books/argyle_store.php?astore_url=amazon.com/argyle-books-20/?_encoding=UTF8&node=0">Books</a><br/><a href="/shop/books/argyle_store.php?astore_url=amazon.com/argyle-books-20/?_encoding=UTF8&node=1">Magazines</a><br/><a href="/shop/books/argyle_store.php?astore_url=amazon.com/argyle-books-20/?_encoding=UTF8&node=5">Software</a><br/><a href="/shop/books/argyle_store.php?astore_url=amazon.com/argyle-books-20/?_encoding=UTF8&node=20">Harry Potter</a><br/> <hr/> <a href="http://www.argyle.com" target="_top" rel="nofollow">Back to Argyle</a> </div> </li> </ul> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div>In association with Amazon</div>
