Even before I met Nora, the narrator of The Woman Upstairs, I had already brushed up against talk of her anger. Knopf - Random House, 2013 First, Claire Messud's NPR interview includes the author reading the novel's opening paragraphs. (That's the now-oft-quoted rant, which begins with "I'm a
Shivan understands, years later, that his grandmother sees herself as the peréthi from the parable. She lives like a ghost, naked and hungry, surrounded by pleasures that she cannot enjoy. Doubleday - Random House, 2013 "Everything she touched, everything she loved, disintegrated in her hands." Readers benefit from Shivan's
"It is through weakness and vulnerability that most of us... discover our soul." (Desmond Tutu) Doubleday Canada - Random House, 2013 If you take Desmond Tutu's statement as truth, Jowita Bydlowska's Drunk Mom is arguably the ultimate discovery. Her to-the-bare-walls description of her alcoholism displays every weakness. It
Jennifer Close has a reputation for having nailed the whole young-woman's-coming-of-age thing in her first novel, Girls in White Dresses. And that, with the image of a young woman on the cover messing with the belt of her dress, brought Curtis Sittenfeld's Prep to my mind. Doubleday - Random
