From Publishers Weekly
With this moving novel, Hoffman has written a story about a family attacked by tragedy, and has given it a larger relevance by confronting one of the most frightening issues of our times. The Farrells are a middle-class family living in a small New England town. Ivan Farrell is an astronomer, wife Polly a photographer, eight-year-old Charlie a budding biologist and 11-year-old Amanda a talented gymnast. Hoffman has few rivals in depicting domestic scenes: the bickering between siblings, the tension between spouses, and withal, the humor and love that holds families together. Suddenly the Farrells are singled out for grief. Amanda, who has been winning gymnastic meets despite a summer-long malaise, tests positive for AIDS, contracted some five years before when she was transfused with contaminated blood after an appendectomy. In unsensationalized detail, Hoffman depicts the effects of her illness. Too stunned, angry and anguished even to turn to each other, Polly and Ivan retreat into separate worlds. Charlie is abandoned by his best friend and shunned by his schoolmates. Amanda, an average adolescent who loves Madonna records, must come to grips with the process of dying. The hysterical reaction of some members of the community is a further blow. Hoffman's sensitive handling of this material is both matter of fact and heartbreaking. Ivan's friendship with a man he meets through the AIDS hotline, Polly's search for comfort with Amanda's pediatrician, Charlie's stoic bewilderment, Amanda's bond with a young woman who is a medium (the only evidence in this novel of Hoffman's characteristic feeling for the supernatural) are all beautifully portrayed. This will be a book that people will talk about and recommend. 100,000 first printing; $100,000 ad/promo; first serial to Redbook; movie rights to 20th Century-Fox; BOMC main selection. Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Probably destined to become the first best-selling novel about AIDS, Hoffman's newest work is heart-wrenching. Star gymnast on her school team, 11-year-old Amanda yearns toward adolescence. When her illness is diagnosed (she'd had a blood transfusion for an appendectomy), her familyphotographer mother Polly, astronomer father Ivan, and 8-year-old brother Charlieexperience the expected disbelief, anger, and sorrow. However, because Amanda has AIDS they also experience rejection by old friends and trouble at school. As Amanda's life dwindles away, the family struggles, begins to dissolve, but finally reconnects. First-rate "contemporary issue" fiction that will leave few dry eyes. Ann H. Fisher, Radford P.L., Va.Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

ANNOTATION

A stunning national bestseller, here is the story of a family in the tradition of "Ordinary People" and "Terms of Endearment." The Farrells are a family as ordinary and special as any family. There are parents, a son, and an 11-year-old daughter with big dreams of gymnastic gold. But a shocking tragedy consumes them, and it becomes all too clear that when it comes to love, everyone is at risk.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In a novel the Village Voice calls "memorable" and "striking", Alice Hoffman vividly portrays a family shattered by tragedy when 11-year-old Amanda is diagnosed with AIDS.

FROM THE CRITICS

Jim Shepard

In its simplicity and directness and restraint there is very often a compelling power' to this novel... —The New York Times Book Review

Chicago Tribune

Brilliant...explosive...heartrending.

Miami Herald

Within pages, the reader falls in love with this very real little girl... Moving, dramatic and painfully human.

Chicago Sun-Times

Deeply moving...Sensitivity and empathy...radiate from this beautiful novel.

Newsweek

Deeply impressive...powerful. Read all 10 "From The Critics" >

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING