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| How to Walk Away by Katherine CenterWhat it's about: A devastating injury forces Maggie Jacobsen to reevaluate everything about her life and begin anew, with help from her estranged sister and her gruff physical therapist.
Why you might like it: Full of well-developed characters, How to Walk Away offers quietly inspiring moments (and humor) as Maggie's healing process unfolds along a realistic trajectory.
For fans of: Jojo Moyes' Me Before You. |
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Florida
by Lauren Groff
What it's about: A collection of stories spanning centuries of time in mercurial Florida examines the decisions and connections behind life-changing events in characters ranging from two abandoned sisters to a conflicted family woman.
Reviewers say: A number of the stories hit similar tonal notes..., but Groff’s skillful prose, self-awareness, and dark humor leaven the bleakness, making this a consistently rewarding collection. (Publishers Weekly)
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There There
by Tommy Orange
What it is: There There is a relentlessly paced multigenerational story about violence and recovery, memory and identity, and the beauty and despair woven into the history of a nation and its people.
Reviewers say: This book provides a broad sweep of lives of Native American people in Oakland and beyond. Echoes of Piri Thomas's Down These Mean Streets meets the unflinching candor of Sherman Alexie's oeuvre; highly recommended.
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Ayiti
by Roxane Gay
What it's about: Released for the first time to mainstream readers, a debut story collection by the award-winning author of An Untamed State is a poignant exploration of the Haitian diaspora experience and is complemented by several new stories.
About the author: Roxane Gay is the New York Times bestselling author who won the PEN Center USA's 2015 Freedom to Write Award. The annual award is presented to individuals or organisations for 'producing notable work in the face of extreme adversity' or showing 'exceptional courage in the defense of free expression.
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| Life After Life by Kate AtkinsonStarring: Ursula Todd, born on a winter's night in 1910 England -- again and again, as each death brings her back to the same point in time and space. Does Ursula choose her paths in life, or do they choose her?
You might also like: Jo Walton's My Real Children, which also offers a haunting meditation on fate and free will by recounting an ordinary 20th-century British woman's alternate lives. Or try Laura Barnett's The Versions of Us, which considers the consequences of certain choices by sharing three different versions of a couple's lives, told in parallel. |
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The World Before Us
by Aislinn Hunter
What it is: When she was fifteen Jane Standen lost the five-year old girl she was taking care of and the child was never found. Years later, Jane is working as an archivist at a local museum in contemporary London which is about to close due to lack of funding. As her last project she searches for information related to a woman who disappeared about 125 years ago from a Victorian asylum. The story moves between the museum, the Victorian asylum and the wooded estate around a country house that seems to connect both time periods.
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After You
by Jojo Moyes
What it's about: Eighteen months after the end of Me Before You, Louisa Clark is living in London, still deep in mourning and struggling to move on.
Is it for you? Did you love reading about Lou and her family in Me Before You? If so, you'll enjoy all the family dynamics at play in this sequel, which offers the same humor and well-developed characters that fans have come to love.
Series alert: The 3rd in the series, Still Me, published this past January.
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After the fire
by Henning Mankell
What it is: The experiences of an aging man whose quiet, solitary life on an isolated island off the coast of Sweden is turned upside-down when his house catches fire.
Why you might like it: It’s a skillfully told, exquisitely structured story filled with sharp insights into human nature and unflinching examinations of the complex relationships to which people bind themselves in order to feel a little bit less alone.
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