Skillfully enter[s] the viewpoint of all main characters, lending each depth and humanity ... Brisk and assured; occasionally, for comedy or plot propulsion, Ridker summarizes or speeds up a potentially intimate moment. His comic assurance...is reminiscent of Meg Wolitzer ... But if Ridker gently satirizes the world and those in it, his take is more generous than bitter ... Ridker is an optimist. His characters make mistakes, but they pay the price, recover and grow ... They soldier on and try not to lose hope. Just as we hold ours that this talented writer will keep gifting us with his intelligent, bighearted, spew-your-gefilte-fish-funny novels.
A series of absorbing portraits of compellingly flawed individuals and a vivid depiction of modern American life ... Ridker packs a lot into Hope ... In places, the novel feels too busy for its own good, with these characters’ detailed biographies and backstories clogging the narrative and stymieing momentum. And some of the imagery is clunky ... However, when Ridker gets the balance right, the novel is at once propulsive and immersive, powered by one tragicomic episode after another, right up until its final tension-filled paragraph.
A comedy of (bad) manners ... No character in Hope is particularly likable. But that doesn’t mean that the largely self-inflicted woes of the Greenspan clan don’t make for engaging reading.
Mr. Ridker will need to take care to not become pigeonholed as a Jonathan Franzen copycat (unless this is his aim) ... But if Hope is less burdened by Mr. Franzen’s Freudian hang-ups it’s not always clear what it offers in their place. Humor is one fine quality ... Hope has the commendable trappings of a big, meaty family novel but lacks the heft and vision to meet its ambition.
Wry ... Ridker keeps these varied plots moving nimbly, neatly balancing broad satire with a hint of compassion for characters whose lives are spinning wildly out of control. Readers who like their family drama with a sharp edge and a generous helping of moral dilemmas will be satisfied with this one.
Loving and hilarious satire ... Ridker may have written the novel of early-21st-century liberal idealism, haunted as Hope is by the disillusionment that almost inevitably follows too-high expectations.
Sometimes the satire veers into the slapstick ... And while Scott and Gideon feel more or less like full-fledged characters, Deb and Maya most assuredly do not ... The novel covers well-traveled terrain with few surprises.
[A] slashing satire ... idker’s account of characters in free fall is painfully funny, filled with cringeworthy scenes that expose them at their most needy. Yet he never loses sight of their basic humanity ... [A] pitch-perfect portrayal of Jewish American life.
