The Smart One

The Coffey siblings are having a rough year. Martha is thirty and working at J. Crew after a spectacular career flameout; Claire has broken up with her fianc and locked herself in her New York apartment until her bank account looks as grim as her mood; and the baby of the family, Max, is dating a knockout classmate named Cleo and keeping a very big, very life-altering secret. The only solution--for all of them--is to move back home. But things aren't so easy the second time around, for them or for their mother, Weezy. Martha and Claire have regressed to fighting over the shared bathroom, Weezy can't quite bring herself to stop planning Claire's thwarted wedding, and Max and Cleo are exchanging secretive whispers in the basement. Jennifer Close's funny and tender follow-up to her bestselling debut novel is a story about the ways in which we never really grow up, and the people we turn to when things go drastically wrong: family.