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Normal People by Sally Rooney

April 15, 2019

ten

Marianne and Connell live very different lives in the same small Irish town. She has a wealthy family and a big house, but is an outcast at their school, while he is everyone’s best friend, a natural athlete, a good student. His mother cleans her family’s mansion, so he comes over every afternoon to pick her up. On one of these afternoons they talk. This innocuous circumstance ... Read More...

7 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, coming-of-age, Hogarth, Ireland, literary, relationships

Trust Exercise

April 12, 2019

trust exercise

Susan Choi’s new novel, Trust Exercise is a polarizing book, with Goodreads reviews divided between 1 star and 5. That can be a good thing or a bad thing. I decided to hope for good, because the story is about teens attending a dramatic arts school, which sounds like The Ensemble, a novel I loved. Did my hopes pan out? Or did I wish I could have back the hours I spent reading ... Read More...

10 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: coming-of-age, Henry Holt and Company, literary

The Ash Family by Molly Dektar

April 10, 2019

ash family

Berie is on her way from her hometown of Durham to Richmond to attend college. College that is being paid for by financial aid and the sale of her mother’s heirloom jewelry. Despite this sacrifice, Berie doesn’t feel close to her mother. In fact, she’s sure her mother doesn’t understand and just wants her to go to college because she didn’t. It was her dream, never mine, ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, debut, literary, Simon & Schuster, Southern life

The Affairs of the Falcóns: A Novel

April 8, 2019

falcons

Life for Ana Falcón is walking a high-wire above a field of razors. She works long days at garment factory hunched over a sewing machine, while her husband, Lucho drives a cab at night. They live with their two small children in the bedroom of a cousin’s apartment in Brooklyn. A cousin who has made it clear they need to move on, but their jobs don’t bring in enough income to ... Read More...

6 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, cultural, debut, ecco, social issues

The Editor by Steven Rowley

April 5, 2019

editor

James Smale is thrilled to sell his first novel to Doubleday, but he is over-the-moon when he finds out his editor is none other than Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. His excitement is tempered by having to tell his mother. As an obsessive Kennedy family follower, her son meeting Jackie would normally be a dream come true, but she’s read a chapter and while it’s fiction it’s about ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: family, historical fiction, New York City

The Other Americans: A Novel

April 3, 2019

other americans

Late one evening, Driss, an older man, is hit and killed in a dark intersection near his restaurant in a small town in California. His death is at the center of Laila Lalami’s new novel, The Other Americans. She assembles Driss’s family, the police, a potential witness, and nearby business owners—each with their own perspective—and lets them tell their story, not just of the ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, contemporary life, literary, mystery, Pantheon, social issues

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