June 2017 List by Trish Hull
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| Standard Deviation by Katherine HeinyGraham Cavanaugh is blessed with a lovely (if overly chatty) second wife and a healthy (if obsessive and socially awkward) young son. But he's beginning to wonder if he's got more in common with his first wife than he truly ever realized. Never fear, though -- this isn't a story of a failing marriage. Rather, this charming, humorous debut and its authentic characters offer a sensitive examination of the challenges of love, marriage, trust, parenthood, and commitment. |
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| Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine by Gail HoneymanEleanor Oliphant -- despite her social isolation and the rules she sets to survive weekends -- insists that she is just fine. But is she really? The gentle overtures of a coworker who accepts her as she is gets things rolling and gives her the emotional support she needs when a horrific (and embarrassing) event forces her to reevaluate her life. As it turns out, Eleanor Oliphant is absolutely not completely fine...but she will be. Though an emotional read, Eleanor's unique take on life offers plenty of humor; read it if you enjoyed the damaged or isolated protagonists in Fredrik Backman's A Man Called Ove or Ramsey Hootman's Courting Greta. |
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| The Leavers by Lisa KoDeming Guo is a fifth grader in the Bronx when his mother, an undocumented Chinese immigrant, disappears. Adopted by two white academics and renamed Daniel, he appears to be well-armed for success, but ten years later Daniel has failed out of college. Then he learns that his mother, who he has never stopped wondering about, is still alive. Told first from his perspective and then from hers, this moving, character-driven novel explores the lack of options for undocumented workers. It won the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction in 2016. |
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| The Standard Grand by Jay Baron NicorvoOnce a fancy Catskills resort, the Standard Grand is now a struggling halfway house for homeless veterans suffering from PTSD; its owner is dying and looking for a successor. He believes he has found her in AWOL Army specialist Antebellum Smith. Meanwhile, developers also have an eye on the home and are more than willing to resort to shady practices to get their hands on the land. With a strong sense of place, multiple narrators, a lively plot, and timely themes, this debut "effectively braids corporate greed, outdoorsy grit, and human connection" (Kirkus Reviews). |
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| Startup by Doree ShafrirWho best to write a novel poking fun at startups and the media outlets that cover them than a culture writer from BuzzFeed? Featuring a tech journalist who needs a juicy scoop to keep her job, a high-pressure round of funding for a new health and wellness app, and some inappropriate (and meant-to-be-private) texts, this debut offers plenty of layers: workplace drama, startup satire, and a treatment of the challenges women face in the workforce. |
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How To Be Human
by Paula Cocozza
A first novel by an award-winning Guardian feature writer traces the breakdown of a marriage in the wake of a suburban hostility, a woman's growing obsession with a cheeky wild fox and the mysterious appearance of a baby on the woman's doorstep.
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Then We Came to the End: 10th Anniversary Edition
by Joshua Ferris
No one knows us quite the same way as the men and women who sit beside us in department meetings and crowd the office refrigerator with their labeled yogurts. Every office is a family of sorts, and the ad agency Joshua Ferris brilliantly depicts in his debut novel is family at its strangest and best, coping with a business downturn in the time-honored way: through gossip, pranks, and increasingly frequent coffee breaks.
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The Ecliptic
by Benjamin Wood
The arrival of haunted seventeen-year-old artist Fullerton shatters the hermetic peace at one of the world's most exclusive artist colonies, prompting Scottish painter Knell to search for answers and confront the realities of her own past.
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The Best of Adam Sharp
by Graeme C. Simsion
The best-selling author of The Rosie Project presents the story of a 50-year-old man who reflects on his safe life choices and his long-ago, blazing affair with a strong-willed actress who contacts him unexpectedly and entices him to pursue a riskier life.
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Outsider
by Barbara Delinsky
Folk healer Summer Van Vorn has been waiting all her life for the right man to come along. Could she have found him in Cameron Divine? The roguish research scientist has come from light-years away on a mission. He wasn't anticipating meeting Summer. But while Cameron can read Summer's mind, and every one of her desires, he can also be as unfathomable as the sea. There's something not quite human about him.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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