Say Goodbye for Now
Catherine Ryan Hyde, 2016
Lake Union Publishing
358 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781503939448
Summary
On an isolated Texas ranch, Dr. Lucy cares for abandoned animals. The solitude allows her to avoid the people and places that remind her of the past. Not that any of the townsfolk care.
In 1959, no one is interested in a woman doctor. Nor are they welcoming Calvin and Justin Bell, a newly arrived African American father and son.
When Pete Solomon, a neglected twelve-year-old boy, and Justin bring a wounded wolf-dog hybrid to Dr. Lucy, the outcasts soon find refuge in one another.
Lucy never thought she’d make connections again, never mind fall in love. Pete never imagined he’d find friends as loyal as Justin and the dog. But these four people aren’t allowed to be friends, much less a family, when the whole town turns violently against them.
With heavy hearts, Dr. Lucy and Pete say goodbye to Calvin and Justin. But through the years they keep hope alive…waiting for the world to catch up with them. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1955
• Where—Buffalo, New York, USA
• Education—High School
• Currently—lives in Cambria, California
Catherine was born into a family of writers, and lived during her early life in the Buffalo, New York. (She points to a favorite teacher, Lenny Horowitz, for helping her change from being "the last kid picked" for a team to finally becoming a writer.) After an accelerated graduation from high school at 17, she headed to New York City planning to do something other than writing—anything that might provide a steadier paycheck. Over the years, she worked as a baker, pastry chef, auto mechanic, dog trainer, and tour guide.
Then, in the early 1980s Hyde decided to dedicate herself to becoming a full-time writer. By the mid-'80s, she had moved to a small town on California’s Central Coast, where she decided to come to terms with her alcohol and drug addiction. Twenty-five years on, Hyde is clean and sober—and now the author of nearly 25 novels, as well as numerous short stories.
She has won literary accolades throughout the world. Her bestselling novel Pay it Forward was adapted into a major motion picture starring Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt, and translated into 23 languages for distribution in over 30 countries.
When not writing, Hyde hikes, kayaks, and visits national parks. The research for Take Me With You was all done from her own little twenty-two-foot motorhome. (Adapted from the publisher and Wikipedia. Retrieved 4/10/2016.)
Book Reviews
Catherine Ryan Hyde delivers once again with this feel-good story guaranteed to be a hit.
Redbook
Catherine Ryan Hyde is a most discerning and gifted writer. She writes quietly yet powerfully, with words chosen and placed carefully, words that enfold and pull the reader deeply into her story.
Bookreporter
A moving story about patience, trust, the families we choose, and the love it takes to let somebody go.
Booklist
[A] moving family story that tackles broad themes of racism, compassion, abuse, and love. Readers will be hoping that the characters find true love and justice. Includes book group questions. —Jan Marry, Williamsburg Regional Lib., VA
Library Journal
Hyde captures the determination of Justin and Pete's friendship as well as the wistfulness of Pete's love for the injured dog. Yet the love between Lucy and Calvin is rushed, underdeveloped, and difficult to believe.... A sentimental yet heartwarming tale of transgression and redemption.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
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)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)
The Private Life of Mrs. Sharma
Ratika Kapur, 2016
Bloomsbury USA
192 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781408873649
Summary
Renuka Sharma is a dutiful wife, mother, and daughter-in-law holding the fort in a modest rental in Delhi while her husband tries to rack up savings in Dubai.
Working as a receptionist and committed to finding a place for her family in the New Indian Dream of air-conditioned malls and high paid jobs at multi-national companies, life is going as planned until the day she strikes up a conversation with an uncommonly self-possessed stranger at a Metro station.
Because while Mrs. Sharma may espouse traditional values, India is changing all around her, and it wouldn't be the end of the world if she came out of her shell a little, would it?
With equal doses of humor and pathos, The Private Life of Mrs Sharma is a sharp-eyed examination of the clashing of tradition and modernity, from a dramatic new voice in Indian fiction. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Ratika Kapur's first novel, Overwinter, was longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize. Elle magazine's Indian edition included her in a Granta-inspired list of twenty writers under forty to look out for from South Asia. She lives in New Delhi with her husband and son. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Renu, the mesmerizing narrator in Ratika Kapur's The Private Life of Mrs. Sharma, has a gift for self-deception. It is baffling, then funny, and then quite poignant to witness . . . . The story [The Private Life of Mrs. Sharma] tells is taut, focused; its wider setting, the new India, pops with life. But the real star of this show is Renu, the Mrs. Sharma of the book's title. She starts in one dimension, then gradually plumps into three.
New York Times - Jennifer Senior
[Mrs. Sharma's] words reveal a dignity more private and complex than society can perceive. The book is worthwhile, and quick to read--perfect for your train ride to work.
New York Times Book Review - Aditi Sriram
In Mrs. Sharma, Ms. Kapur has fashioned a memorably double-sided character for a novel that, like a gathering storm, changes before your eyes from soft light to enveloping darkness.
Sam Sacks - Wall Street Journal
One sign of a great novel is an ending that seems shocking when you read it but entirely inevitable when you look back over the events of the book . . . The Private Life of Mrs Sharma delivers this punch both emotionally and in terms of its plot. Tender and funny . . . [Kapur] is a gifted writer . . . The author’s language is vivid and brutally honest . . . a razor-sharp take on gender and economic inequalities.
Irish Times
Clever, wise . . . wonderfully funny . . . an easy pleasure to read . . . I will remember this book for years to come. The points it makes about motherhood, responsibility and self-deception are all so close to home . . . The feel of contemporary Indian life, caught between tradition and modernity, is brilliantly captured.
Newsday
In Ratika Kapur's compelling tale, narrator Renu is in need of fulfillment. While her husband tries to make it in Dubai, she remains in Delhi, feeling trapped and alone. Her escape: an affair with a magnetic stranger she meets on her commute.
US Weekly
This delightfully funny novel delivers a serious message about what happens when our responsibilities push us to the breaking point (Book of the Week).
People
If you're ready for ravishing glimpses into the secret passions of a contemporary yet traditional Indian wife, mother and medical worker who takes a lover, you'll adore The Private Life of Mrs Sharma
Elle
Mrs. Sharma's mounting omissions to her family will have you tearing through the pages of this provocative novel.
Marie Claire
The battle between then and now comes alive in Kapur's novel of life in an evolving India.... A beautiful, tragic, and highly recommended work by a writer previously long-listed for the Man Asia Literary Prize.
Booklist
(Starred review.) [Sharma's] fraught, often humorous and irreverent narration is a study in cognitive dissonance, in which she is constantly trying to reconcile the complex stimuli of Delhi with the image of herself as a simple woman from a good family.... Kapur proves that a gifted writer can still powerfully capture a complex voice from a singular place and time.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, consider our LitLovers talking points to start a discussion for The Private Life of Mrs. Sharma...then take off on your own:
1. What do you think of Renu Sharma? How sympathetic is she as a character? Does your attitude toward her change over the course of the novel? Why or why not?
2. Follow-up to Question 1: When we first meet her, Rena is full of boasts—about her son Bobby's good looks, her own desirability, her inner character. What do we come to learn about her boastfulness? Deep down, what is it really about?
3. Renu often refers to herself as "respectable." What does the following statement reveal about her?
I have a child and a respectable job, and a mother-in-law and father-in-law. I am not a schoolgirl, and even when I was a schoolgirl, when I was Miss Renuka Mishra, even then I actually never did the types of things that other girls of my age did.
4. Renu tells us, "I agreed to go out with him [Veneet] and I don’t think that it was wrong.” What do you make of that declaration? Is she being honest—with us, with herself? Is there a hint of defensiveness about her avowal ... or perhaps of naivete ... maybe even of self-deception?
5. Follow-up to Question 4: Renu's decision to pursue a relationship with Veneet is at first innocent enough, but it's a slippery slope or, to use another cliche, a case in which one thing leads to another. Was the couple's slipping down that slope inevitable?
6. What does Renu's life reveal about the role of women in India? How would you describe their position in the social hierarchy? Is feminism in Renu's socioeconomic strata alive and well?
7. What does the fact that Renu's husband works in Dubai indicate about the Indian economy and what it takes to attain a middle-class life?
8. What does Renu mean when she says, “I sometimes think that the head and heart that God gave me don’t actually belong to me.”
9. Do you find the ending satisfying? Does Ratika Kapur have you on pins and needles as the book moves toward its denoument? Would you have preferred a different ending to the novel?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
Lucky Boy
Shanthi Sekaran, 2017
Penguin Publishing
480 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781101982242
Summary
Eighteen years old and fizzing with optimism, Solimar Castro-Valdez embarks on a perilous journey across the Mexican border. Weeks later, she arrives in Berkeley, California, dazed by first love found then lost, and pregnant.
This was not the plan.
Undocumented and unmoored, Soli discovers that her son, Ignacio, can become her touchstone, and motherhood her identity in a world where she’s otherwise invisible.
Kavya Reddy has created a beautiful life in Berkeley, but then she can’t get pregnant and that beautiful life seems suddenly empty.
When Soli is placed in immigrant detention and Ignacio comes under Kavya’s care, Kavya finally gets to be the singing, story-telling kind of mother she dreamed of being. But she builds her love on a fault line, her heart wrapped around someone else’s child.
“Nacho” to Soli, and “Iggy” to Kavya, the boy is steeped in love, but his destiny and that of his two mothers teeters between two worlds as Soli fights to get back to him. Lucky Boy is a moving and revelatory ode to the ever-changing borders of love. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1977-78
• Where—State of California, USA
• Education—B.A., University of California-Berkeley; M.F.A, Johns Hopkins University;
Ph.D, University of Newcastle-Upon Tyne (UK)
• Currently—lives in Berkeley, California
Shanthi Sekaran teaches creative writing at California College of the Arts, and is a member of the Portuguese Artists Colony and the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto.
Sekaran's work has appeared in the New York Times, Best New American Voices and Canteen, and online at Zyzzyva and Mutha Magazine. Her first novel, The Prayer Room was published in 2008 and reissued in 2016. Lucky Boy, her second novel, came out in 2017.
A California native, Sekaran lives in Berkeley with her husband and two children. (Adapted from the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Sekaran has made sure to tell a story without obvious villains.... Despite the unsurprising and drawn-out ending, Soli and Kavya are both given sympathetic treatment thanks to the textured rendering of their lives, and readers will be emotionally invested.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) By giving both sides equal weight, Sekaran evokes compassion for all the principals involved in the story, which...will not lead to a fully happy conclusion. Despite a few implausible plot twists in the book's last third, the novel is highly recommended. —Christine DeZelar-Tiedman, Univ. of Minnesota Libs., Minneapolis
Library Journal
Remarkably empathetic...Deeply compassionate...Delivers penetrating insights into the intangibles of motherhood and indeed, all humanity.
Booklist
(Starred review.) Two very different women reckon with pregnancy, childbirth, and the meaning of family.... [Their] heartbreaking journeys [are] bound by love of the baby boy.... Sekaran is a master of drawing detailed, richly layered characters and relationships.... A superbly crafted and engrossing novel.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. The narrative alternates between Soli and Kavya. Did you relate to one woman more than the other? If so, why?
2. Soli travels to America riding on La Bestia, while Kavya’s family arrived by more traditional means. How does this novel portray privileged versus unprivileged immigration? Do you feel differently about immigration after reading the book?
3. Kavya would be the first to admit she did not live the life her parents pictured for her. How do the expectations of her parents shape her character? Does Kavya’s love for Iggy change her understanding of heritage? Does it change her husband’s and parents’ understanding of heritage?
4. Is Silvia a good role model for Soli? Why or why not? Is Silvia’s one big lie forgivable?
5. Discuss how the novel explores motherhood. What are some key differences between the way Soli thinks of motherhood and the way Kavya does? In what ways is motherhood the same for both women?
6. When Rishi is asked if he wants a child, he thinks “Children had seemed like a project planted permanently in the future. A certainty about which he never thought he’d be asked. Had anyone asked his own father if he’d wanted a baby?” (p. 54). How does the novel portray fatherhood? Is it different from motherhood? Do you think men plan for children differently than women do?
7. Discuss how Lucky Boy addresses the classic idea of the American dream. Is the American dream still attainable? Has it changed?
8. After giving birth to Nacho, Soli thinks “I’m a mother in Berkeley, but I’m no Berkeley mother” (p. 188). What do you think she means.
9. As Soli plans to become a housekeeper in California, she remembers her father telling her that “servitude lives in the heart” (p. 63). How does the novel portray class stratification? Does race play a role in these class divides?
10. From Santa Clara Popocalco to Berkeley, the Weebies campus, and Silicon Valley, the novel paints a vivid portrait of the West. How does this setting shape the novel? Would the story be different if it was set elsewhere in America?
11. Were you shocked by how Soli was treated in immigrant detention? Why or why not?
12. Kavya reasons with herself...
Why did people love children who were born to other people? For the same reason they lived in Berkeley, knowing the Big One was coming: because it was a beautiful place to be, and because there was no way to fathom the length or quality of life left to anyone, and because there was no point running from earthquakes into tornadoes, blizzards, terrorist attacks. Because destruction waited around every corner, and turning one corner would only lead to another” (p. 350).
Do you agree with Kavya’s decision to fight to keep Iggy? Why or why not? Have you ever made a decision you knew might hurt down the line? What about a decision you knew others might not understand?
13. How did you feel about the ending? Were you surprised? Do you think Soli should have made a different choice?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
The Futures
Anna Pitoniak, 2017
Little, Btrown and Co.
320 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316354172
Summary
A young couple moves to New York City in search of success—only to learn that the lives they dream of may come with dangerous strings attached.
Julia and Evan fall in love as undergraduates at Yale.
For Evan, a scholarship student from a rural Canadian town, Yale is a whole new world, and Julia—blond, beautiful, and rich—fits perfectly into the future he's envisioned for himself.
After graduation, and on the eve of the great financial meltdown of 2008, they move together to New York City, where Evan lands a job at a hedge fund. But Julia, whose privileged upbringing grants her an easy but wholly unsatisfying job with a nonprofit, feels increasingly shut out of Evan's secretive world.
With the market crashing and banks failing, Evan becomes involved in a high-stakes deal at work—a deal that, despite the assurances of his Machiavellian boss, begins to seem more than slightly suspicious.
Meanwhile, Julia reconnects with someone from her past who offers a glimpse of a different kind of live. As the economy craters, and as Evan and Julia spin into their separate orbits, they each find that they are capable of much more—good and bad—than they'd ever imagined.
Rich in suspense and insight, Anna Pitoniak's gripping debut reveals the fragile yet enduring nature of our connections: to one another and to ourselves.
The Futures is a glittering story of a couple coming of age, and a searing portrait of what it's like to be young and full of hope in New York City, a place that so often seems determined to break us down—but ultimately may be the very thing that saves us. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1987-88
• Where—Whistler, Brtish Columbia, Canada
• Education—B.A., Yale University
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York, USA
Anna Pitoniak is an editor of fiction and nonfiction at Random House. She graduated from Yale in 2010, where she majored in English and was an editor at the Yale Daily News. She grew up in British Columbia. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Pitoniak maintains her keen eye for the universal insecurities facing her generation today, from romantic uncertainties and the relative benefits and downsides of hedge fund and nonprofit jobs to the emotional effort it requires to negotiate the predetermined facts of one's upbringing with the person one chooses to become.
Harper's Bazaar
This winter's cathartic read: a story that feels familiar yet wholly original, like every heartbreak ever.
Marie Claire
An emotional page-turner.
Cosmopolitan
Pitoniak's inspired debut centers on two recent college grads who move to New York City together during the 2008 recession and watch their relationship change drastically.
InStyle
Pitoniak eschews cliché for nuanced characterization and sharply observed detail. Evan and Julia ring true as 20-somethings, but Pitoniak’s novel also speaks to anyone who has searched among possible futures for the way back to what Julia calls “the person I had been all along.”
Publishers Weekly
This debut coming-of-age novel captures the insecurities of the first days of independent adulthood and the unintended consequences in the struggle for maturity. Readers of general fiction will enjoy this story. Recommended. —Joanna Burkhardt, Univ. of Rhode Island Libs., Providence
Library Journal
Pitoniak's well-plotted, character-driven, interior-focused novel captures the knowable angst of the unknowable possibilities of modern young adulthood.
Booklist
Pitoniak expertly captures both the excitement and the oppressive darkness of being young and at sea in New York City.... And while the novel isn’t always subtle in its revelations, it’s deeply empathetic—and always engaging. A bittersweet coming-of-age drama and a portrait of an era.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, please use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for The Futures...then take off on your own:
1. Talk about the novel's two main characters, Julia and Evam, their admirable parts and their flaws. Neither one is a saint; still, do you find them sympathetic—one more so than the other? Or both equally?
2. What do Julie and Evan want out of life, and what does each want from the other? How do their different backgrounds shape their individual needs for fulfillment in life and in a relationship?
3. Julie becomes disillusioned after only a few months of job searching. Has she given herself enough time, or do you find her naive or even aimless? Does her entitled upbringing prompt her to see life through rose-tinted glasses, perhaps?
4. When do you begin to see the honeymoon period in New York begin to crack. Do you feel that one of the two feels more invested in the relationship than the other?
5. Consider how both Evan and Julia change over the course of the novel? What does each learn about him or herself and the world around them?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
This Is How It Always Is
Laurie Frankel, 2017
Flatiron
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250088550
Summary
This is how a family keeps a secret…and how that secret ends up keeping them.
This is how a family lives happily ever after…until happily ever after becomes complicated.
This is how children change…and then change the world.
This is Claude. He’s five years old, the youngest of five brothers, and loves peanut butter sandwiches. He also loves wearing a dress, and dreams of being a princess.
When he grows up, Claude says, he wants to be a girl.
Rosie and Penn want Claude to be whoever Claude wants to be. They’re just not sure they’re ready to share that with the world. Soon the entire family is keeping Claude’s secret. Until one day it explodes.
Laurie Frankel's This Is How It Always Is is a novel about revelations, transformations, fairy tales, and family.
And it’s about the ways this is how it always is: Change is always hard and miraculous and hard again, parenting is always a leap into the unknown with crossed fingers and full hearts, children grow but not always according to plan.
And families with secrets don’t get to keep them forever. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
Laurie Frankel lives in Seattle, Oregon, with her husband, son and border collie. Before writing fulltime, she taught college-level writing, literature and gender studies.
Her previous novel, The Atlas of Love, has been highly acclaimed: "This beautifully written debut offers something for everyone—humour, richly drawn characters, and a tender exploration of love, friendship, and food" - Los Angeles Times Magazine. (From the publisher.)
Book Reviews
A bold, honest, heartbreaking story about the choices parents make, and how life goes on, but not always according to plan. This must-read novel… is the perfect pick for book clubs.
PopSugar
One of the most timely and big-hearted family stories I have read in a long time…This is a beautiful novel about the unexpected curve balls of parent and sibling relationships, and the limitless boundaries of family love.
Bustle
(Starred review.) Frankel's slightly askew voice, exemplified by Rosie and Penn's nontraditional gender roles, keeps the narrative sharp and surprising. This is a wonderfully contradictory story—heartwarming and generous, yet written with a wry sensibility.
Publishers Weekly
This novel offers a timely and thoughtful look at the life of a transgender child. It is also a touching and sympathetic account that is brimming with life and hard to put down. —Leslie Patterson, Rehoboth, MA
Library Journal
(Starred review.) [T]he challenges of raising a transgender child.... Though well-plotted, well-researched, and unflaggingly interesting, the novel is cloying at times, with arch formulations, preachy pronouncements.... [Still, as] thought-provoking a domestic novel as we have seen this year.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
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)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher.)