Hannah signs her books at Barnes & Noble in Warwick, RI.
Hannah is available to come to your school to talk about writing and publishing or run a writer's workshops for students and teachers. She also sees writers one-on-one for writing coaching and consutling for publishing.
The night before her sister’s wedding, fifteen year old Madeline Hickman finds herself doing what she has done countless weekend nights– make sure her 24-year-old sister, Barbara, gets to bed without falling down, waking up their parents, or vomiting anywhere that isn’t the toilet. Only on this night, Madeline realizes she is fed up–not only with her sister, but also with herself.
And so begins Madeline’s quest to stop managing the many alcoholics in her life and start managing her own problems. Armed with self-help books and the wisdom of her grandmother Bubbie, she tackles the growing estrangement between herself and her two best friends, Peter and Susan as well as the mounting tension between herself and boyfriend Justin. Peter and Susan have gone from study partners to sex partners, and Justin wants to follow their example with Maddie. Maddie and Justin’s make out sessions have turned into a kind of tug-of-war involving Justin’s hand and Maddie’s zipper. Neither the zipper nor the hand win. Instead, good old JD does as Justin has taken up the habit of drinking whenever he is pissed off.
However, in typical Maddie fashion, instead of dealing with her own life, she is distracted by her family’s ongoing problems–problems that she has very little control over. First, the mysterious family squabble between her Jewish Martha Stewart mother and beloved Bubbie and second, her sister’s escalating drinking problem. To top it off, the entire family is in denial about everything. Then, tragedy nearly happens, putting an abrupt end to denial and avoidance.
Maddie concludes that sex and alcohol seem to have ruined her life and no matter how many self-help books she devours, she can’t fix everyone’s problems–including her own. More importantly, she understands that the only person she can truly try to fix, is herself.
Friendships, loves, and families broken and glued back together make for a realistic portrayal of the ordinary and not so ordinary problems of growing up in MSW.
"Hannah Goodman has written a wonderfully witty, engrossing and hilarious novel about sisters and their relationships. Her prose is dead on and her scenes flow effortlessly from one to the other. I can't remember the last time I stayed up to finish a book, but I had to finish My Sister’s Wedding!" Rosemary O’Brien, Author of First Saturday
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In the 2005 fall issue of East Bay Living, syndicated columnist cited several famous authors like Grisham and Patricia Cornwell as her favorite authors. She also added, "I also like local authors. There's a young adult book (My Sister's Wedding) by Hannah Goodman, a teacher who lives in Bristol (RI). It has great dialogue."
