Cutting Teeth

February 17, 2014
Debut novelist Fierro tells a story about the obsessive, competitive, and neurotic behavior of parents in their 30s. The focus is four families who venture to a Long Island beach house for Labor Day weekend. Nicole, a paranoid pot smoker, is trying to avoid taking Zoloft again; Allie and Susanna are newlyweds and expecting; Rip is a stay-at-home father who argues with his wife about buying his little boy a princess dress; Leigh is an heiress trying to maintain the pretense that she has not, in fact, lost her family fortune. Finally, there is Tiffany, who always has the last word and consistently wears the least amount of clothing among the weekenders. As the melting pot of personality churns and Tiffany’s appetite for wreaking havoc grows, jealously, betrayal, and regret slowly overpower any possibility for relaxation. Even though this story is framed to be a cozy and comical slice of life, Fierro’s attempts to relate to the current age of parenting ultimately fall short.

May 1, 2014
The urban-sophisticate mothers of middle-class Brooklyn come under the spotlight in a debut novel set in Eden, the not-so-paradisiacal Long Island beach house where a play group gathers to spend one transformative Labor Day weekend.Needy, obsessive-compulsive and anxious-and that's just the parents in Fierro's satire of contemporary New York child care. Nicole, mother of Wyatt, is continuously wracked with terror over germs and knives but now fears a catastrophe is looming and posts her apprehensions on urbanmama.com; lesbian couple Susanna and Allie are keeping secrets from each other while stressing over who's the real mommy; stay-at-home dad Rip needs his wife, Grace, to want another baby, but she doesn't; and former debutante Leigh, whose son, Chase, has behavioral issues, is unwilling to share her Tibetan Buddhist nanny, Tenzin, with sexy Tiffany, still breast-feeding her bossy daughter, Harper, age 4. As the holiday proceeds and meals, conversations and beach activities go on in the background, Fierro tirelessly pursues her characters' interior dilemmas, moving from one adult perspective to another, each parent preoccupied with sex, money, work, home, partner and, of course, the actual children. While the Americans are all pursuing some elusive future happiness, it is asylum-seeking Tenzin, thousands of miles from her husband and children, who can see the bigger, life-and-death picture and delivers the moral message: "Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from our own actions." Eventually, on the final evening, the claustrophobic pitch of petty tension among this edgy group intensifies, leading to an inevitable but brief riot of panic, bad behavior and repentance.Capable and readable but narrowly focused, Fierro's novel, with its obvious targets, can seem like the literary equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel.

COPYRIGHT(2014) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

April 15, 2014
Before the fall round of activities begins in New York City, Nicole invites the members of her son's playgroup and their parents for an extended weekend at a beach house on Long Island. The grown-ups include stay-at-home dad Rip, who wishes his wife would have another child; Allie, who's thinking of abandoning her wife for her art; and Nicole's best friend, upper-crust Leigh, whose finances are failing. Too much time together makes these mothers and fathers act a lot like their preschool children and brings out the underlying discontents in their lives. The parents, at least, learn valuable lessons. VERDICT In her debut, Fierro, a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, creates a wide variety of characters whose only common ground is their children, effectively capturing the conflicted relationships all parents have with their children and with one another. Readers with children will appreciate especially.--Joanna Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Libs., Providence

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 1, 2014
When families from a New York City play group gather together for a Labor Day retreat, personalities clash in a weekend of cliquey behavior and tantrums. Nicole organized the party as an excuse to get her family out of the city during what she anxiously fears will be a terrorist attack, and her friends all come for their own ulterior reasons. Susanna hopes the trip will convince her partner to move to the suburbs, Rip aims to persuade his wife to have a second child, and Leigh is avoiding a crisis awaiting her at home. With spouses and toddlers in tow, the weekend drags on and patience wanes, but it's Tiffany, mom to the only girl in the group, who is the ultimate loose cannon. Fierro's first novel captures the complexity of forging new friendships and redefining lives as contemporary parents. Although largely unsympathetic, her characters are meticulously drawn, the situations emotionally charged. Readers, especially young parents, won't be able to look away from the train wreck of urban family dysfunction on display here.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)