The Party

April 3, 2017
In Harding’s (The Secret Desires of a Soccer Mom) latest incisive family drama, a 16th birthday party is the catalyst for an affluent family’s fall from grace. Hannah is the well-behaved and well-adjusted daughter of Jeff and Kim Saunders, or so they think. When Hannah’s low-key sweet 16 celebration—pizza with a handful of friends—becomes a test to see if she can cut it with her more mature friends Ronnie and Lauren, Hannah is willing to break the rules. The night quickly turns to terror when Ronnie has an accident that throws Hannah’s parents and their choices into the spotlight, threatening to unravel everything they have built. Although the plot doesn’t build the tension required to sustain the high drama of the novel, Harding expertly peeks into the darker corners of the high school experience. Hannah is a believably smart yet insecure teenage girl, and the conflict between her parents, who feel jarred by her growing up, and Hannah, who feels constantly reminded of how young she still is, rings true and textured. The premise, which often feels like a reworking of and homage to Herman Koch’s The Dinner, feels simplistic at times, but the intricate family dynamics that Harding teases out are complex and engaging.

April 1, 2017
An accident at a Sweet 16 party triggers a series of traumatic events that threatens to shatter a family.Hannah Sanders is finally one of the cool girls at San Francisco's elite Hillcrest Academy, where she's a sophomore. But everything could change if her 16th birthday party isn't legendary, and the way her uptight mother, Kim, is behaving, it seems like it's going to be the kind of staid sleepover better suited for tweens than a 16-year-old desperate to hold on to her newly acquired social status. Told no booze, drugs, or boys, Hannah and her friends--queen bees Ronni and Lauren, along with two girls from her anonymous days, Caitlin and Marta--sneak in all three, with disastrous consequences. As the saying goes, it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye, which is exactly what happens to drunken Ronni when she goes crashing through the coffee table in the middle of the night. Harding (Chronicles of a Midlife Crisis, 2010, etc.) fragments the story, going backward and forward in time in an attempt to stir up more tension than actually exists, both surrounding the accident and in the Sanders' lives, particularly the shiny-on-the-outside, rotting-on-the-inside marriage of Kim and Jeff. They're sued for a ridiculous sum by Ronni's mother, Lisa, which triggers a predictable pile of skeletons to come tumbling out of the marital closet, while Hannah must try to deal with the wrong kind of attention at school as she decides whether to stick with her new friends or stand up for the bullied, disfigured Ronni. The domestic drama is done well, even if it's nothing new, but the cruelty of adolescence is painted with too broad a brush to be wholly convincing.

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