I wanted them to like me. Such a simple sentence. Six words, and yet, coming three-fourths of the way through Emma Cline’s debut novel The Girls, they hold the key to the entire novel. They are instantly recognizable to any woman with a memory of her teenage years and they define fourteen-year-old Evie Boyd, the novel’s narrator. But as simple as they are they are also ... Read More...
The Time in Between
This is the final review from my recent mental health reading and it was easily the most difficult because it’s non-fiction. The Time in Between is Nancy Tucker’s memoir about her life from the time she was a little girl until present day, with the focus on her teen years. Her life changes at age eleven, while attending a private girls’ school, which makes her insecure ... Read More...
Dear Fang, With Love
Because she wasn’t a trendsetter. No one could hope to be like her. She was one of a kind and, because of this, very much alone. About whether she was pleased with this state of affairs or saddened, I was never entirely sure. Maybe she would have liked to belong. ‘She’ is Vera, Lucas’s teenage daughter. For most of her life he’s been absent; she was the result of a wild whim ... Read More...
Sweetbitter
“You know what I dislike? When people use the future as a consolation for the present.” Tess arrives in NYC in the summer of 2006 from somewhere, but it doesn't matter where because as far as she is concerned she didn't exist before passing through the tollbooth onto the island of Manhattan. And we shouldn't care either, which we don't, because in short ... Read More...
Back to Moscow
Having recently read and adored The Tsar of Love and Techno I wasn’t sure I needed another book about contemporary Russian life. Happily, I ignored myself and read Back to Moscow anyway. Guillermo Erades’ novel looks at the modern day Russian experience from the microcosm of a young man in Moscow. Martin is twenty-four and has arrived from Europe as a graduate student ... Read More...
Miller’s Valley
Miller’s Valley is both the title and location of Anna Quindlen’s new novel. It is a tiny community where Mimi Miller’s family has owned and farmed their land for hundreds of years. Now it’s under threat because the government has decided to use a dam they put in decades ago to divert the river, flooding the town and turning it into a reservoir and a source of hydroelectricity. ... Read More...
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