Maggie Selgrin has always been known in her family as "the contented one"-ever practical and steady, in contrast to her mercurial sisters. She is in her early thirties, works as a mammogram technician (why did she ever consider that graduate degree in literature?), and lives in a Vancouver apartment with Rebecca, a magazine quiz and questionnaire designer. The latest quiz-"When Will You Die?"-startles Maggie by indicating that she has only a few months to live. Surely it's a mistake. A bout of insomnia, spiritual crisis, and the simultaneous appearance of three suitors send Maggie's life into turmoil that gets even worse when she kidnaps her newborn nephew, ostensibly to save him from a brewing international custody battle. With her acute sense of sickness, pain, and death, Maggie has a lot to learn about happiness. This first novel may remind us of works by the author's mother, Carol Shields, in its sensitive handling of rich characters and domestic detail. A touching and satisfying read; recommended for all public libraries.-Jenn B. Stidham, Houston Community Coll.-Northeast, TX (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

This charming though overwritten debut from novelist Carol Shields's eldest daughter hinges on the sympathetic protagonist's realization that she is "not completely" happy, an insight that surprises her when a magazine quiz devised to predict longevity calculates that she has but three months to live. Thirty-something Maggie Selgrin, an unmarried radiation technologist in a Vancouver hospital, has always been the even-tempered middle daughter in a remarkably wholesome family. Despite her professional stability, solid friendships and close family, the quiz triggers her admission of discontent. Not only does she ache for romance (she links joy with the idea of a relationship), but she realizes she has always subsumed her needs to those of her more temperamental sisters. Maggie flounders and fumbles to regain her emotional footing before no less than three men enliven her static existence and she becomes embroiled in the kidnapping of her sister Lucy's baby. Giardini's meditative, hyper-descriptive prose can bog down the plot, but readers will surely relate to her likable heroine. And if the story offers no novel lessons about life, love or the pursuit of happiness ("Happiness evades capture, dissolving like a melody into the air, eluding even the most delicate, careful grasp"), it does provide a pleasantly entertaining journey. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

A debut by the eldest daughter of the late Carol Shields explores the ambitious theme of its title through the prism of a not terribly interesting single woman in Vancouver. When 32-year-old Maggie tests out one of the self-help quizzes her roommate Rebecca designs for a living, the quiz concludes that, based on her ambivalent response to the question "Are you happy," Maggie will die in three weeks. Easy-going Maggie loves her job giving mammograms, enjoys her apartment, goes hiking every weekend, has friends and seems pretty content, but the test results unsettle her. She stops sleeping, starts visiting a Catholic church and gradually morphs into someone who receives flattery and favors from everyone she meets. Soon, three men are vying for her attention: sexy fellow hiker Angus, courtly lawyer Charles and gentle do-gooder Leo. Meanwhile, Maggie's neurotic younger sister Lucy has left her married lover in Italy and come home, pregnant, to become engaged to Ryan. Lucy's and Maggie's romantic entanglements generate minimal heat (can Canadian men be as bland as Giardino implies?). After Lucy delivers a baby boy, Maggie accidentally gives the details to Lucy's Italian lover, who shows up with his wife to demand custody of his heir. Maggie steals the baby from the hospital and ends up hiding out in a French Canadian village near Montreal with a family of strong motherly women. While she and Rebecca are away, her apartment burns down--she'd have died if she'd been home (the prophecy fulfilled?). Maggie returns with the baby, whom Lucy gets to keep after a custody battle, pleads guilty of having taken the infant and gets a short term of house arrest but doesn't lose her job. Charles dies suddenly of a heart attack, Leo heads to Kosovo and Maggie sees more of Angus. For all the plot events, the story feels scattershot. A more serious problem is that, for all the musing about happiness and loss, the characters' emotions never rise above the tepid. Neither will readers'. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Maggie, the biddable middle child of three sisters, abandons her conventional existence as a radiation technician after a magazine longevity quiz score predicts she has only three months to live. The critical question affecting the life-expectancy outcome is: Are you happy? Now, at age 32, she examines the concept of happiness as an absolute state of being and most frequently the concern of others, not her own. The unexpected arrival of her unmarried sister's married Italian lover intent on claiming custody of Lucy's newborn son spurs Maggie into a precipitous act of kidnapping the infant and disappearing to an isolated village. Serving a three-month house arrest sentence, she realizes happiness is not a constant but more ephemeral than thought. Richly reflective, this debut novel by the daughter of Carol Shields explores Maggie's world as she seeks the solution to that unanswerable question of what or how happiness is defined and achieved in one's lifetime. --Laurie Sundborg Copyright 2005 Booklist