Those Who Knew
Idra Novey, 2018
Penguin Publishing
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780525560432
Summary
A taut, timely novel about what a powerful politician thinks he can get away with and the group of misfits who finally bring him down.
On an unnamed island country ten years after the collapse of a U.S.-supported regime, Lena suspects the powerful senator she was involved with back in her student activist days is taking advantage of a young woman who's been introducing him at rallies.
When the young woman ends up dead, Lena revisits her own fraught history with the senator and the violent incident that ended their relationship.
Why didn't Lena speak up then, and will her family's support of the former regime still impact her credibility? What if her hunch about this young woman's death is wrong?
What follows is a riveting exploration of the cost of staying silent and the mixed rewards of speaking up in a profoundly divided country. Those Who Knew confirms Novey's place as an essential new voice in American fiction. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1977-78
• Raised—Johnstown, Pennsylvania, USA
• Education—B.A., Barnard College; M.F.A., Columbia Univesity
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York City
Idra Novey is an American novelist, poet, and translator (from Portuguese and Spanish). She grew up in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, with 3 siblings and now lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Novey is the author of the novels Those Who Knew (2018) and Ways to Disappear (2016). Her poetry books include Exit, Civilian (2011) and The Next Country (2008).
She is the translator of The Passion According to G.H. by Clarice Lispector, On Elegance While Sleeping by Viscount Lascano Tegui, Birds for a Demolition by Manoel de Barros, and The Clean Shirt of It.
She has received awards from Poets & Writers, the Poetry Foundation, the Brooklyn Eagles Literary Prize, and the National Endowment of the Arts. (Adapted from Wikipedia and other online sources. Retrieved 11/12/2018.)
Book Reviews
Read this now, because everyone you know will be talking about it by early 2019.
Washington Post
Idra Novey's taut second novel takes on an ever-relevant subject: Those Who Knew is a fast-paced, hackles-raising story that focuses on silenced victims of assault and the remorse and shame that comes of not speaking up against abuses of power.
NPR
By turns brutal, funny, and tender.… During what are arguably our own Terrible Years, with truth and justice blurred nearly every day, Those Who Knew is as urgent as a ticking time bomb.
Oprah Magazine
There’s timely and then there’s timely. In this prescient novel, a powerful, corrupt senator may finally atone for his crimes when a woman close to him winds up dead. But who can bring him down?
Entertainment Weekly
This timely thriller examines the power influential men hold over women.
Time
Utterly, painfully, of our time.… Novey reveals the extent of our connections to one another, and the true reach of a person's actions—how they can ripple out so much farther than they'd imagined.
Buzzfeed
The second novel by the poet-translator, whose debut, Ways to Disappear, put her on a short list of boundary-busting young mystery authors, works in a dash of dystopia, untangling the dark history of a progressive senator ten years after the fall of a dictatorship.
New York
Almost exactly a year after the Me Too floodgates opened, this novel takes a closer look at the fallout of a powerful figure’s abuse.
Huffington Post
Poet-turned-novelist Idra Novey's new book is set on an unnamed island country 10 years after the collapse of a U.S.-supported regime. Lena suspects that a powerful senator she used to be involved with is taking advantage of another young woman—and when that woman turns up dead, Lena must revisit her turbulent relationship with the senator.
Bustle
[P]ropulsive.… [T]hough there are some unnecessary structural turns (scenes from a play…), the book nevertheless has a striking sense of momentum. [A]dd in a slight and intriguing sense of the supernatural, and the result is a provocative novel that has the feel of a thriller.
Publishers Weekly
The personal is political in this new novel from Novey.… By concentrating on the interconnected and very personal stories of each [character], Novey negotiates the surreal reality of an aging port city that is both victim and beneficiary of globalization.… Highly recommended.
Library Journal
Novey creates a landscape in which her characters may represent, or sometimes hide, their nation, class, or station in life. Yet her women overcome such barriers and join together, revealing what they know in order to effect change, a modern parable.
Booklist
(Starred review) [A] woman suspects a prominent senator… is guilty of his own private violence.… It's not a particularly subtle book… it unfurls more or less how you'd expect… but Novey's writing is so singularly vibrant it hardly matters. Dreamy and jarring and exceedingly topical.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for THOSE WHO KNEW … and then take off on your own:
1. How would you describe Lena's character? Why, for instance, does she go to such lengths to cover up her family's wealth? Why is she hiding it …or hiding from it? How did Victor use her privileged class position to manipulate her?
2. Why does Lena believe it is her responsibility to speak out about her suspicions surrounding Victor's role in Maria's death? Is it her responsibility? Consider Lena's own experience with Victor's rage and her years of silence.
3. When an unfamiliar black sweater and bra keep turning up among her belongings, Lena comes to believe she is receiving signals from an afterlife—which means that she is ordained to avenge Maria. How do you view these and other strange occurrences—are they spiritual visitations, her imagination, or symptoms of trauma or guilt?
4. Talk about the reasons that Olga cautions Lena against standing up to the "wrath of a sociopath." If you were in Olga's position—and given her own tragic history—do you find her warning understandable? What would you advise Lena?
5. Victor? Talk about his character—and how, for example, he represents "politics as usual." (Pigs, anyone?)
6. The novel's big question is this: to what degree is remaining silent in the face of sexual violence a matter of complicity and a moral failing?
7. Power is also a major subject in Those Who Knew. Consider the ways in which various characters wield power over others—sexual, political, or socio/economic. For instance, Victor can turn his sexuality against Cristina, but she can leverage her family's political connections against him. Who else leverages power against others?
8. Talk about previous U.S. involvement in the country's history and how American tourists show no interest in learning of America's role in that dark past.
9. Consider Freddy's play and the way it implicates his brother Victor without publicly defaming him. Does the play-within-a-novel device work as a plot device?
10. Follow-up to Question 9: Why might the author have divided the novel into three acts, as if it were a stage play?
11. Novey also uses extraneous media—news bulletins, sales entries, and commentary from Freddy's play. What do these snippets add to the reading experience?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
FamilyTrust
Kathy Wang, 2018
HarperCollins
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062855251
Summary
Meet Stanley Huang: father, husband, ex-husband, man of unpredictable tastes and temper, aficionado of all-inclusive vacations and bargain luxury goods, newly diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
Meet Stanley's family: son Fred, who feels that he should be making a lot more money; daughter Kate, managing a capricious boss, a distracted husband, and two small children; ex-wife Linda, familiar with and suspicious of Stanley's grandiose ways; and second wife Mary, giver of foot rubs and ego massages.
For years, Stanley has insistently claimed that he's worth a small fortune. Now, as the Huangs come to terms with Stanley's approaching death, they are also starting to fear that Stanley's "small fortune" may be more "small" than "fortune."
A compelling tale of cultural expectations, career ambitions and our relationships with the people who know us best, Family Trust draws a sharply loving portrait of modern American family life. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1984
• Raised—Los Altos, California, USA
• Education—B.A., University of California-Berkeley; M.B.A., Harvard University
• Currently—lives in Los Altos, California
Kathy Wang is an author, whose debut novel Family Trust was published in 2018. She was raised in Los Altos, the northern part of Silicon Valley, to an engineer mother and government-worker father. She received a B.A. from the University of California-Berkeley and an M.B.A. from Harvard.
After grad school, Wang returned to California to work for Intel Corp., moving on to Seagate Technology where she became a product manager. Then she put her business career on hold following the birth of her son, and in early 2017 turned to writing. She was determined to finish a novel before giving birth to her second child—a deadline she acheved six months later when she received a call back the day from a literary agent on the very day she returned home from the hospital with her newborn daughter.
Wang and her young family live in Los Altos, California. (Adapted from various online sources. Retrieved 11/13/2018.)
Book Reviews
An old plot device gets a fresh life in this debut novel about a family gathering around the impending death of its patriarch in Silicon Valley.
Washington Post
Dryly cynical.… [T]he hook, however, lies in Wang’s relatable portraits of the various members of the Huang family.
Toronto Globe and Mail
It’s a story of trust in both senses of the word, and Wang guides us effortlessly through that intertwining mess of love and resentment that only family can create. She does so against the backdrop of Silicon Valley wealth and pretensions, perfectly skewering its (and our) culture of excess.
Buzzfeed
Set in a Silicon Valley that is as monstrous and absurd as it is true to life, Family Trust examines the nature of family loyalty and obligation as well as the choices that set lives on seemingly irreversible courses.
San Francisco Book Review
American literature knows family about as well as anything else.… By now the cliches write themselves. Yet debut author Kathy Wang confidently leans into them, spicing up old stories—the tense reunions and fatal betrayals and dying fathers—with fresh faces.
Entertainment Weekly
Addictive.… [A] story about families and what connects everyone to one another, about the ties that bind and what the comfort that financial security can bring to people inside the hamster wheel of American consumerism.
NPR.org
A Taiwanese-American family faces the realities and indignities of living in Silicon Valley in Wang’s astute debut.… The author brings levity and candor to the tricky terrain of family dynamics, aging, and excess. Wang’s debut expertly considers the values of high-tech high society.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review) While many are comparing this novel to Kevin Kwan's Crazy Rich Asians, it's much more about family relationships.… Verdict: Readers who enjoy complicated novels about family issues will find this engrossing work impossible to put down. —Andrea Kempf, formerly with Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, KS
Library Journal
[Wang] explores Silicon Valley subculture with wit and ultimately reveals a deep understanding of her feckless strivers.
Booklist
Wang speaks with authority, insight, and irony about the ethnic and socio-economic realities at business school, in Silicon Valley, in mixed-race relationships and marriages. A strong debut.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. To what degree do you think the Huangs are affected by Silicon Valley’s specific culture? How does the environment shape their ambition and expectations?
2. How are the trajectories of Fred and Kate’s careers shaped by gender expectations and stereotypes?
3. In what ways do each of the men in Family Trust act on their sense of entitlement and ingratiate their egos? How do the women in the book react to this?
4. In some ways Linda is the wife Stanley needs while Mary is the wife Stanley wants. How do they counteract each other and compliment each other? How well did each know the "real" Stanley?
5. The original title for this book was "A Man of Means." How does this title reflect the events of the book? In what ways does the book’s tagline, "Some of us are more equal than others" ring true?
6. How does the theme of excess versus restraint play out in the book? What does it reveal about the Huang family dynamics?
7. What are the similarities and differences in the way Fred and Kate relate to being Chinese American? How does that come into play in their romantic relationships?
8. Linda is arguably the best at reading people and situations but can also be judgmental. Do you consider her to be a reliable narrator? How reliable are the other points of view in the book?
9. Would you say Mary is a sympathetic character? Were you surprised when she disappeared?
10. Right before he dies, Stanley thinks that he is "lucky to have always been lucky." Does this seem accurate to you? How much did luck factor into the situation each of the characters find themselves in nine months after Stanley’s death?
11. What does Kate’s friendship with Camilla reveal about her marriage with Denny? What gaps does Camilla fill in Kate’s life?
12. Mary says she feels closest to Fred, Kate, and Linda when she allows herself to feel angry about Stanley’s betrayal and false promises. What role does anger play in the story? How does Stanley unite and divide those closest to him?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
top of page (summary)
The Winters
Lisa Gabriele, 2018
Penguin Publishing
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780525559702
Summary
Inspired by Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, a spellbindingly suspenseful novel set in the moneyed world of the Hamptons, about secrets that refuse to remain buried and consequences that can’t be escaped
After a whirlwind romance, a young woman returns to the opulent, secluded Long Island mansion of her new fiancs Max Winter—a wealthy politician and recent widower—and a life of luxury she’s never known.
But all is not as it appears at the Asherley estate.
The house is steeped in the memory of Max’s beautiful first wife Rebekah, who haunts the young woman’s imagination and feeds her uncertainties, while his very alive teenage daughter Dani makes her life a living hell.
She soon realizes there is no clear place for her in this twisted little family: Max and Dani circle each other like cats, a dynamic that both repels and fascinates her, and he harbors political ambitions with which he will allow no woman—alive or dead—to interfere.
As the soon-to-be second Mrs. Winter grows more in love with Max, and more afraid of Dani, she is drawn deeper into the family’s dark secrets—the kind of secrets that could kill her, too. The Winters is a riveting story about what happens when a family’s ghosts resurface and threaten to upend everything. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1968
• Where—Windsor, Ontario, Canada
• Education—B.A., Ryerson University
• Awards—Canadian Screen Award-Best Reality Series; Gemini (twice)-Best Reality Series
• Currently—lives in Toronto, Ontario
Lisa Gabriele is a Canadian novelist, television producer and journalist. She was the show runner for Dragons' Den (2006-2012). As novelist, Gabriele is the author of Tempting Faith DiNapoli (2002), The Almost Archer Sisters (2008), and The Winters (2018), an update of Daphne DuMaurier's 1938 classic, Rebecca.
In February 2013, it was revealed on The Current that Gabriele is the actual identity of the pseudonym "L. Marie Adeline," author of the erotic novel S.E.C.R.E.T. (2013). Now a trilogy, the two sequels came out in 2013 and 2014. She was also outed as ghost writer for Kevin O'Leary of Shark Tank and Dragons' Den.
Although neither book is under her name, Gabriele is the only Canadian writer who has had #1 bestsellers in both fiction and non-fiction at the same time—S.E.C.R.E.T. by L. Marie Adeline and Men, Women and Money by Kevin O'Leary.
Under her own name, Gabriele's essays and fiction have appeared in several anthologies, including Dave Eggers' The Best American Nonrequired Reading; Sex and Sensibility; Don’t You Forget About Me; When I Was a Loser; and 2033: The Future of Misbehavior. Her short story, "How to Be a Groupie," was included in the Norton Anthology of Western Literature.
Gabriele's writing has also appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Washington Post, Glamour, Salon, Vice, among other publications.
In addition to Dragon's Den, Gabriele has worked as a director and/or producer for CBC for The Week the Women Went and, from 2003-2006, wrote the CBC radio program The Current. She has also produced or directed programs for the History Channel, the Life Network and Slice TV. As head of development for Proper Television, she worked on Masterchef Canada in 2015 and 2017.
Nominated for four Geminis, Gabriele has won twice. She also won the Screen Award for best Reality TV show in 2013. She lives in Toronto, where she graduated from Ryerson University's school of journalism in 1992. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retreived 11/14/2018.)
Book Reviews
It’s as beautifully written as it is (re)plotted and the updating of the characters is superb. Fabulous—and not just for Rebecca fans.
Daily Mail (UK)
Spellbinding and eerie.… [A] riveting, breaktaking page-turner.
Woman's World
A bewitching novel about love, lies, and the ghosts that never quite leave us alone, The Winters is a masterful retelling of an old favorite that has enough surprises to keep readers hooked, even if they think they know how it all ends.
Bustle
[A] suspenseful, dark tale of love, deception, and grief… from the minute you crack open The Winters until you reach its riveting conclusion, you'll be spellbound.”
PopSugar
[C]reepy, atmospheric homage to Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca…. Gabriele keeps the tension high up to the surprising and satisfying final twist. Du Maurier fans will be pleased.
Publishers Weekly
Gabriele skillfully modernizes… [Rebecca]. Fans of du Maurier's book…will admire how Gabriele plays with the elements, but anyone who appreciates solid, twisty, "whom can I trust" narratives and female empowerment stories can enjoy. —Liz French
Library Journal
[A] haunting reimagining of Daphne Du Maurier’s original thriller, Rebecca.… This retelling… retains the allure and gothic tone of the original, while remaining a page-turner for newcomers to the story.
Booklist
With [a] close echo of one of the most famous opening lines in literature, Gabriele [opens] … her update of Daphne Du Maurier's 1938 classic, Rebecca.… A harmless parlor game of a book but a little lacking in the skin-crawling suspense department.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The Winters has been described as a modern response to Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. Have you read Rebecca? If yes, did that enhance your enjoyment of The Winters? How does The Winters stand on its own as a distinct work?
2. Lisa Gabriele has said that, in The Winters, she sought to examine shifting gender roles and norms since Rebecca’s publication. She has argued that men—in particular, powerful white men—have not changed as much as women have. Do you agree? How does The Winters illustrate this?
3. What role do the disparate settings of Rebecca and The Winters—1930s England and 2010s America—have in shaping the plot? How do the cultural forces at play differ between the books, and how are they the same?
4. The unnamed narrator says there was nothing about her that would suggest she was the type to fall for a man like Max Winter. What do you think she means by this? Do you agree with her?
5. The narrator gleans information about Rebekah’s life and death, as well as about Max and his daughter Dani, from her internet searches. How has the internet made it difficult to keep the past in the past? Do you think this is a good or bad thing?
6. Discuss the moment the narrator lays eyes on Asherley, Max’s estate and her new home. Why is this Cinderella trope—of a lower- or middle-class woman rescued by someone rich—so common in literature? Have you ever had this fantasy?
7. Dani and Max tell differing stories about what happened to Rebekah that night in the greenhouse. What makes Max easier to believe than Dani? In the narrator’s place, who would you believe and why? And, as a reader, how do you think Rebekah died?
8. Discuss the use of water as a symbol in The Winters. Why do you think this symbol recurs and what do you think it represents?
9. Early in the story, Louisa tells the narrator: "I can see what Max sees in you.… He brought you home for a reason." Our narrator believes this reason is love. What do you think?
10. Revisit the opening scene of the book. Has your interpretation of this scene changed now that you’ve finished the novel? Does The Winters have a happy ending?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
Scribe
Alyson Hagy, 2018
Graywolf Press
176 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781555978181
Summary
A haunting, evocative tale about the power of storytelling
A brutal civil war has ravaged the country, and contagious fevers have decimated the population. Abandoned farmhouses litter the isolated mountain valleys and shady hollows. The economy has been reduced to barter and trade.
In this craggy, unwelcoming world, the central character of Scribe ekes out a lonely living on the family farmstead where she was raised and where her sister met an untimely end.
She lets a migrant group known as the Uninvited set up temporary camps on her land, and maintains an uneasy peace with her cagey neighbors and the local enforcer.
She has learned how to make paper and ink, and she has become known for her letter-writing skills, which she exchanges for tobacco, firewood, and other scarce resources.
An unusual request for a letter from a man with hidden motivations unleashes the ghosts of her troubled past and sets off a series of increasingly calamitous events that culminate in a harrowing journey to a crossroads.
Drawing on traditional folktales and the history and culture of Appalachia, Alyson Hagy has crafted a gripping, swiftly plotted novel that touches on pressing issues of our time—migration, pandemic disease, the rise of authoritarianism—and makes a compelling case for the power of stories to both show us the world and transform it. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1959-60
• Raised—Franklin County, Virginia, USA
• Education—B.A., Williams College; M.F.A., University of Michigan
• Currently—lives in Laramie, Wyoming
Alyson Hagy is an American author of short fiction and novels. She grew up on a farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia and is a graduate of Williams College where she twice won the Benjamin Wainwright Prize for her fiction. She completed her Honors thesis under the direction of Richard Ford.
Hagy went on to earn her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Michigan working with George Garrett, Alan Cheuse, and Janet Kauffman. While at Michigan, she was awarded a Hopwood Prize in Short Fiction and a Roy Cowden Fellowship. Early stories were published in Sewanee Review, Crescent Review, and Virginia Quarterly Review. In 1986, Stuart Wright published her first collection of fiction, Madonna On Her Back.
Hagy taught at the University of Virginia, the University of Michigan, and the Stonecoast Writers Conference before moving to the Rocky Mountains and joining the faculty at the University of Wyoming in 1996.
She is the author of eight works of fiction, including Hardware River (1991), Keeneland (2000), Graveyard of the Atlantic (2000), Snow, Ashes (2007), Ghosts of Wyoming (2010), Boleto ( 2012), and Scribe (2018).
Awards and recognition
Hagy has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Christopher Isherwood Foundation. Her work has won a Pushcart Prize, the Nelson Algren Prize, the High Plains Book Award, the Devil’s Kitchen Award, the Syndicated Fiction Award, and been included in Best American Short Stories. Recent fiction has appeared in Drunken Boat, The Idaho Review, Kenyon Review, INCH, and Michigan Quarterly Review.
Personal
HGY'S Abiding interests and transgressions include hiking, fishing, tennis, cohabitating with Labrador Retrievers, college athletics, and making artist’s books. She lives in Laramie, Wyoming with her husband Robert Southard. They have one son, Connor (Adapted from the author's website. Retrieved 11/26/2018.)
Book Reviews
Scribe, which begins with the baying of hounds and ends with silence, reminds us on every page that humans remain the storytelling animal, and that therein might lie our salvation.… In this brave new world, a woman with a pen may prove mightier than a man with a sword.
Lydia Peele - New York Times Book Review
setting, identity and motivations are shrouded in Blue Ridge mist, Hagy’s language is intense and crisp.… Hagy does a splendid job of intertwining the strange threads in her novel, and readers with a taste for magical doings will not be disappointed.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
An original addition to the post-apocalyptic genre, Scribe reaffirms the power of the pen and the surviving quality of the human spirit.
Arkansas International
It’s a hungry book—one where every sentence seems to imply a second that it never offers; where every page and every paragraph offers the ghost of a feast, but never lets you eat.
NPR.org
Fans of Fiona Mozley’s Elmet will revel in this genre-busting feminist folktale of a novel, which is as rooted in its own particular, peculiar time as it is relevant to the concerns of 2018.
Vanity Fair
[An] eerie, artfully etched post-apocalyptic tale.
BBC Culture
Hagy probes the weight of responsibility and the desperation of survival in a deteriorated society in this evocative, opaque tale.… The vagueness of setting, supernatural elements, and only partially revealed histories amp up the eeriness of this disquieting novel.
Publishers Weekly
[A] postapocalyptic world.… [I]s this the Civil War unfolding or a future cataclysm that resembles it?… More epic prose poem than sf, this [is a] slender, affecting meditation on grief and death, with a flavoring of Appalachian folklore stirred in. —Reba Leiding, emeritus, James Madison Univ. Lib., Harrisonburg, VA
Library Journal
(Starred review) [S]et in a world ravaged first by civil war and then by fever.… Taut and tense, with both a dreamlike quality and a strong sense of place, Hagy’s brief but powerful tale will indelibly haunt readers long after the final page is turned. — Kristine Huntley
Booklist
(Starred review) A slim and affecting powerhouse.… Hagy is a careful writer; each sentence feels as solid and sturdy as stone.… Timely and timeless; a deft novel about the consequences and resilience of storytelling.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers Book Club Resources. They can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(Resources by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)
The Proposal
Jasmine Guillory, 2018
Penguin Publishing
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780399587689
Summary
What happens when a public proposal doesn't turn into a happy ending, thanks to a woman who knows exactly how to make one on her own?
When someone asks you to spend your life with him, it shouldn't come as a surprise—or happen in front of 45,000 people.
When freelance writer Nikole Paterson goes to a Dodgers game with her actor boyfriend, his man bun, and his bros, the last thing she expects is a scoreboard proposal.
Saying no isn't the hard part—they've only been dating for five months, and he can't even spell her name correctly. The hard part is having to face a stadium full of disappointed fans.
At the game with his sister, Carlos Ibarra comes to Nik's rescue and rushes her away from a camera crew. He's even there for her when the video goes viral and Nik's social media blows up—in a bad way.
Nik knows that in the wilds of LA, a handsome doctor like Carlos can't be looking for anything serious, so she embarks on an epic rebound with him, filled with food, fun, and fantastic sex.
But when their glorified hookups start breaking the rules, one of them has to be smart enough to put on the brakes. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1976 (?)
• Raised—Berkeley, California, USA
• Education—B.A., Wellesley College; J.D., Stanford University
• Currently—lives in Oakland, California
Jasmine Guillory is an American lawyer and author. Her novels include The Wedding Date, published early in 2018, followed by The Proposal in the fall of the same year. Both books became bestsellers.
Raised in Berkeley, California, Guillory was ingrained early on with a passion for politics, especially after watching the 1991 Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill Congressional hearings. She was further inspired by a beloved seventh-grade teacher, only ten years her senior, who left teaching to pursue a law degree. Her teacher's decision solidified Guillory's own career dreams.
After college and law school, Guillory practiced law for eight years. Yet, as she recounted to Catapult, she found she wanted something more:
After I’d been a lawyer for about eight years, I found myself longing for some sort of creative outlet. The repetitive, structured, spreadsheet-oriented nature of my work often made me feel stifled.
And so Guillory turned to writing fiction, even though she had never considered herself a writer, let alone an author—people whom she had always thought of as solitary and lonely. But Guillory loved to read, (according to family legend, she was reading at the early age of three), so she decided to try her hand at novel writing.
Guillory knew the kind of novels she wanted to write: stories about smart young black girls living in a city. To prepare herself, Guillory spent a year or more reading books about writing and reading novels to suss out the methods of character and plot development. Eventually, once her writing muscles felt strong enough, she put them to work on a romance novel, the novel we know as The Wedding Date. (Adapted from online sources, including Catapult. Retrieved 11/28/2018.)
Book Reviews
With sharp banter, a well-rounded cast of characters, and plenty of swoony scenes, Jasmine Guillory defends her position as one of the most exciting rom-com writers out there.
Buzzfeed
There is so much to relate to and throughout the novel, there is a sharp feminist edge. Loved this one, and you will too.
Roxane Gay, author
While there isn’t much of an overall plot (the majority of the book… [is] devoted to… Carlos and Nik going on dates and being cute), it’s hard to get upset about it because the whole thing is so delightful. A charming book for the modern romance lover.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for THE PROPOSAL … then take off on your own:
1. The best place to start your discussion for The Proposal is to talk about Nik and Carlos: do you sympathize with them or dislike them … and why? Why do they make the decisions they do, what motivates them?
2. What were you expectations for the couple over the course of the novel? Did those expectations, or hopes, pan out?
3. What about your own life? Do any of the events or situations in The Proposal relate to something that has ever happened (or is happening) to you?
Also, be sure to take a look at our DISCUSSION RESOURCES … they can help with any discussion:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(Resources by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)