Very entertaining ... Sorell assembles an eccentric cast of side characters ... Real-life issues are dealt with here — infidelity, gentrification, regret, affordable housing, aging — but because of the bright prose and offbeat cast, I was never too worried. This world is funnier and friendlier than our own; it’s a place where drama is offset by absurd family dynamics and housing crises are avoided with madcap solutions. I was always happy to return to The Wise Women, safely amused by the witty dialogue and disasters, confident that things would work out in the end.
A layered story of New York City’s gentrifying outer boroughs and an advice columnist who tries to help her two grown daughters ... A somewhat contrived set of coincidences ... Sorell does a fine job describing neighborhood tensions and the city’s real estate scene, though the story wraps up a bit too neatly. This gets the job done, but its pleasures are fleeting.
Wendy proves to be startlingly open-minded and humorously unpredictable in her meddling (one iffy but pivotal plot thread has her bonding with an Instagram influencer) ... The answers are unsurprising. While the novel begins with lots of human complexity and daily-life detail, characters are soon giving honest, heartfelt speeches about changing their lifelong attitudes, and everyone is taking the sage advice of everyone else. The characters are warm and quirky in an enjoyably familiar way, and the settings—mostly a couple of lower-key White neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens—are nicely detailed ... With tidy resolutions, this novel doesn’t pack the punch of some of its peers, but it's a fine addition to the collection.
