Coming-of-age Archives - The Gilmore Guide to Books

Saoirse by Charleen Hurtobise

Catherine — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 07:35:16 +0000

A teenage girl in fear for her life steals both money and a passport to get out of the U.S. and into Ireland in the 1990s. This is the beginning of the novel Saoirse, but it’s nowhere near the beginning of the life of Sarah, the main character. That unspools slowly throughout the book as […]

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Lucky Girl

Catherine — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 08:40:50 +0000

What is life like when you have an extraordinary gift? When you’re a child with an ability that goes far beyond your years and you have the determination to see it grow? For Lucy, the ability was dance and her ambition so fierce it takes her to the heights of commercial success in Lucky Girl, […]

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Crux by Gabriel Tallent

Catherine — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 08:33:32 +0000

Life in a nowhere town in the Mojave Desert should be torture for teens, but Daniel and Tamma are rock-climbing freaks and the area is filled with challenging boulders. Best friends since childhood they spend every waking moment not in school out on the rocks, but as Crux opens it is senior year. Daniel is […]

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Home of the American Circus

Catherine — Thu, 21 Aug 2025 07:18:22 +0000

Home of the American Circus begins with Freya’s rent being overdue and her appendix bursting. These two events give her no choice but to leave Maine where she lives and head back to her hometown in New York. And not just the town, but her childhood home which was left to her by her parents. Once […]

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What Kind of Paradise

Catherine — Tue, 22 Jul 2025 07:40:27 +0000

Jane has lived her entire life in a 700 square foot cabin near Bozeman, Montana; her contact with the modern world significantly limited. Her father is stern, but loving, a Luddite zealot who raves against technology in any form and writes copious screeds that no one reads, except Jane. Until he realizes that, with her […]

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The Bright Years

Catherine — Tue, 29 Apr 2025 07:42:44 +0000

Four generations of one Texas family unfold on the pages of Sarah Damoff’s intimate debut, The Bright Years. What begins with the simple act of falling in love turns into something deeper and more profound as secrets and addiction pull apart the loving trio of father Ryan, mother Lillian, and daughter Georgette (Jet), leaving each […]

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March Reading Recap

Catherine — Mon, 31 Mar 2025 07:56:08 +0000

Hello, fellow readers! I’m not sure I’ll get to say this again, but despite a completely miserable and toxic month in the news, my March reading was calmly solid. I only had one book I didn’t finish, am fully immersed in a fabulous fantasy series, and read six books that were successful (3.5 stars or […]

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Kate & Frida: A Novel of Friendship, Food, and Books

Catherine — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 07:17:55 +0000

It begins with a letter sent from Paris to Seattle. Nothing romantic or between friends, but business because in 1991 that’s how these things were done. Frida writes to the Puget Sound Book Store looking for a book. Kate is the employee delegated with filling this customer request. Neither could know that this brief correspondence […]

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The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus

Catherine — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 08:47:20 +0000

Monday I shared a literary novel I loved and now I’m back with another. The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus is the witty, contemporary story of two friends and their freshman year at the University of Edinburgh. Alice and Penelope both have their reasons for wanting to leave Canada and go to this particular […]

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This Motherless Land

Catherine — Mon, 27 Jan 2025 08:30:06 +0000

A loving, happy, Nigerian family is torn apart when a daughter survives a horrific car crash that leaves her mother and brother dead and her father’s grief makes him hate her for surviving. This is This Motherless Land and Funke is the daughter, who at eight finds herself on a plane to England to live […]

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