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Vintage: A Novel

August 15, 2014

vintage

Hourglass Vintage is a charming used clothing shop in Madison, Wisconsin. It is also where three women at very different stages of life meet in Vintage, the debut novel from author Susan Gloss. Violet is the owner,  Amithi is a middle-aged Indian woman, who brings in much of her jewelry and clothes to sell, and April is a pregnant eighteen-year-old who thought she would be ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: chick lit, debut, fashion, William Morrow

California: A Novel

August 11, 2014

california

There is no prelude in Edan Lepucki’s debut novel, California, no introduction to life in a time of normalcy. Instead, the novel begins with Cal and Frida living in a small house in a forest somewhere in the U.S. but we don’t know where because state names are no longer used. The dystopia is in full swing as America has finally collapsed due to climate change, the oil crisis, ... Read More...

14 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, debut, dystopia, Little Brown and Company, science fiction

Everything I Never Told You

June 25, 2014

favorite debuts of 2014

Celeste Ng’s debut novel Everything I Never Told You is the story of the Lee family. They live in Ohio where the father James is a professor and wife Marilyn stays at home and raises Nathan, Lydia, and Hannah. This is the Rockwell painting version but within those broad strokes there is the kernel, the seed that determines how this story will grow. The source is the very love ... Read More...

7 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, debut, literary, mystery, Penguin

Young God: A Novel

June 13, 2014

young god

Within the first eight pages of Young God, thirteen-year-old Nikki jumps off a cliff into a pool of water below after being dared, flirts with her mother’s boyfriend, and then watches her mother die as she attempts the same jump from the cliff. By the end of the second chapter, she has had sex with the boyfriend, stolen his car and his bag of drugs, and moved back into her ... Read More...

4 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: contemporary fiction, debut, Farrar Straus Giroux

Ruby: A Novel

April 28, 2014

ruby

  Ephram Jennings has been in love with Ruby Bell since they met as children fishing in a lake near their hometown of Liberty, in east Texas. When Ruby returns to Liberty after escaping as a young woman to the high life in New York City, she has lost all the shine that made her a beauty and seems to have no control over her own body, spending nights howling and screaming, ... Read More...

8 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, debut, Hogarth, magical realism, Southern life

Dear Lucy: A Novel

April 23, 2014

dear lucy

This wonderful work of magical realism was one of my favorite debuts for 2013. It was just released in paperback this week so if you missed it the first time around here's my review.   “There are words that I am looking for and when I find those words I will know that they were the words I was looking for, to tell people about the shapes of things inside ... Read More...

5 Comments
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Fiction Tagged: book clubs, coming-of-age, debut, literary, Simon & Schuster

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