I'll Give You the Sun
Jandy Nelson, 2014
Penguin Young Readers
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780142425763
Summary
Winner, 2015 Michael L. Printz Award
A story of first love, family, loss, and betrayal for fans of John Green, David Levithan, and Rainbow Rowell
Jude and her twin brother, Noah, are incredibly close. At thirteen, isolated Noah draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude cliff-dives and wears red-red lipstick and does the talking for both of them.
But three years later, Jude and Noah are barely speaking. Something has happened to wreck the twins in different and dramatic ways . . . until Jude meets a cocky, broken, beautiful boy, as well as someone else—an even more unpredictable new force in her life.
The early years are Noah's story to tell. The later years are Jude's. What the twins don't realize is that they each have only half the story, and if they could just find their way back to one another, they’d have a chance to remake their world.
This radiant novel from the acclaimed, award-winning author of The Sky Is Everywhere will leave you breathless and teary and laughing—often all at once. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June 24, 1965
• Where—New York, New York, USA
• Education—B.A. Cornell University; M.F.A., Brown University; M.F.A., Vermont College
• Awards—Michael L. Printz Award
• Currently—lives in San Francisco
Jandy Nelson is an American writer for young adults and a literary agent.
She received a BA from Cornell, an MFA from Brown in poetry, and another MFA from Vermont College in writing for children and young adults. The Sky Is Everywhere is her first novel and was noted as one of YALSA's 2011 Best Fiction for Young Adults. Her second novel, I'll Give You The Sun, was published in June 2014 and won the 2015 Michael L. Printz Award for excellence in young adult literature. Nelson lives in San Francisco.
At the annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, Nelson participated in panel discussions. She was on the panel "Young Adult Fiction: Teens and Turmoil" with Gayle Forman, Cynthia Kadohata and moderator Sonya Sones during the 2010 event. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/11/2015.)
Book Reviews
Bold, even breathtaking. You get the sense [the] characters are bursting through the words, breaking free of normal metaphors and constructions, jubilantly trying to rise up from the prison of language.... The book celebrates art’s capacity to heal, but it also shows us how we excavate meaning from the art we cherish, and how we find reflections of ourselves within it.... I’ll Give You The Sun is a dazzling mirror
Lauren Oliver - New York Times Book Review
I'll Give You the Sun is a daydream...otherworldly and mesmerizing.... Nelson's evocative language envelops one's imagination...an exquisite surrender to wonder and possibilities.
Boston Globe
[Nelson] has an electrifying facility with description, especially how her characters feel at a given moment...[Jude], Noah, and the fine cast of subsidiary characters...are most memorable for how they poignantly illustrate the most basic of human emotions—love, grief, shame, remorse, joy.
Chicago Tribune
This book is about many things: grief, sexuality, creativity, bravery, identity, guilt. But mostly it's about love. Be prepared with more tissues than you needed for The Fault in Our Stars, a chunky notebook to scribble down all the quotes and a handful of witty responses when people ask why you're chuckling to yourself in the corner. Because this book will make you realise how beautiful words can be.
Guardian (UK)
[These] viewpoints—Noah’s at 13 and 14, Jude's at 16—intersect in surprising ways, and eventually come together in a satisfying, if bittersweet, conclusion.... Young adults will learn they're not alone in navigating the emotional highs and lows of finding their identity; older readers will have moments of wistful recognition. I, for one, devoured this book.
Montreal Gazette
I'll Give You the Sun gives the word "intense" new meaning...a novel that makes you want to go out and skydive, but if you can read a novel like this now and then, you don't need to.
Newsday
This book is many things at once, all of them engrossing. It's a book where teenagers think in almost indulgently poetic language while still sounding genuinely adolescent. It's two separate but equally intoxicating love stories.... Most of all, it's the mystery of what happened to tear Noah and Jude apart, and what—if anything—can bring them back together again. (Guide to 2014's Great Reads)
NPR
Simply unforgettable.... If you’re looking for a book that’s deep and powerful and beautiful, look no further. You must read I’ll Give You The Sun (Top 12 Young Adult Books of 2014).
Lisa Parkin - Huffington Post
Both structurally virtuosic...and emotionally wrenching. That alone is a rare combination in literature, YA or otherwise. But then add in the characters.... This book is a rebuttal to anyone suggesting YA, because it tells stories of young people, is somehow of lesser stuff. I’ll Give You The Sun is literature. Full stop. In my opinion, it’s not just the best YA book of the year, but one of the best books of the year.
Gayle Forman - Parade
A blazing prismatic explosion of color.... I'll Give You the Sun is that rare, immersive teen novel: To read it is a coming-of-age experience in itself.
Entertainment Weekly
Ingeniously told from the alternating perspectives of its spunky twin protagonists, this (technically) young adult noel jubilantly holds its own against the fall's grown-up offerings, with dead-on insights about surviving youth—and family.
O Magazine
You'd think that we were plugging The Fault in Our Stars, but even that comparison might sell short I'll Give You the Sun.... [It's] planted firmly in the positive, making for a gravity-defying, life-affirming experience.
San Francisco Magazine
(Starred review.) Twins Noah and Jude are inseparable until misunderstandings, jealousies, and a major loss rip them apart.... Nelson’s novel brims with emotion (grief, longing, and love in particular) as Noah, Jude, and the broken individuals in their lives find ways to heal (14–up).
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) (Gr 9 Up) Resplendent.... Readers will forgive convenient coincidences because of the characters' in-depth development and the swoon-worthy romances. The novel's evocative exploration of sexuality, grief, and sibling relationships will ring true with teens. —Shelley Diaz
School Library Journal
An intricate and absorbing work of art emerges from the details of the interlaced sections. Few novels about twins capture so well the rewards and challenges...or the way in which people who have loved us remain in our minds after their deaths.
VOYA
(Starred review.) In an electric style evoking the highly visual imaginations of the young narrators, Nelson captures the fraught, antagonistic, yet deeply loving relationship Jude and Noah share.
Booklist
The novel is structurally brilliant, moving back and forth across timelines to reveal each teen's respective exhilaration and anguish.... Nelson's prose scintillates... dizzyingly visual.... Here's a narrative experience readers won't soon forget.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Why do you think the author tells the story through the two voices of Noah and Jude and at two different ages, i.e. Noah at 13 and Jude at 16? What impact does this have on the development of the plot, our understanding of their characters and on the reader? What are the underpinning messages of the book?
2. "Love is only half the story" is the quote on the front cover of the book. What do you think this means and what do you think the other half of the story is?
3. Jude tells Oscar "I gave up practically the whole world for you. The sun, stars, ocean, trees, everything, I gave it all up for you" (p.365). What was she trying to express to him? What would you give up the sun for and why?
4. The book deals with the big themes in life—grief, sexuality, families, relationships and most of all love, in all its forms. Art is one of the central platforms for the expression of these themes. Discuss how the characters react to it, use it to bring meaning to their lives, make sense of the world around them, harness their creativity and ultimately help in their healing.
5. What did you think about the ending of the book—did it complete the story in a satisfying and believable way for the reader? How might it have ended differently? Write a different ending for the story and let a minor character narrate it.
6. In the book, the sculptor Guillermo Garcia is described as "the kind of man who walks into a room and all the walls fall down" (p.177). What does that mean and what does it tell you about him as a character? Can you think of any real people for whom this description might also fit?
7. When Noah is talking about his father, he says that he draws him "so big I can’t fit all of him on the page, so I leave off his head" (p.15). What does this say about Noah’s relationship with his dad? Does the reader get to know Dad’s character as well as the other characters and what impression does he leave on the reader?
8. At the beginning of the book, every time Jude and Noah played rock, scissors, paper, they always chose the same thing (p.25), whereas at the end of the book they chose differently (p.394). What does this say about their future lives and the relationship between them?
9. After the death of their mother and its aftermath, both twins change dramatically in their outlook, behaviour and personalities, each becoming something they are not. Why do you think this happens?
10. Which is your favourite character in the book and why? How do you feel the main characters deal with their grief and what impact does this have on the other?
11. Ghosts and the supernatural feature prominently throughout the story. How does the book manage to make Grandma Sweetwine, who is dead, such a real, solid character? Do you believe that it is the ghost of her mum that keeps breaking Jude’s sculptures and if so, why do you think she is doing it? What influence does the spirit of Oscar’s mum have?
12. Prophet the parrot and his "Where the hell is Ralph?" refrain is one of the humorous elements of the story. Why do you think the author included him and what part does he play?
Questions from Jandy
13.If you had your own "invisible museum" like Noah, what would some of your own portraits and self-portraits look like? In the same vein, if you had a "bible" of superstitions like Jude, what would some of the entries be?
14. The Michelangelo quote that comes up in the story, "I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free", is also in many ways a theme that runs through the book. I had the feeling when I was writing that the characters were each metaphorically trapped in stone prisons of their own makings. How would you describe the differing and/or similar "stone prisons" of Jude, Noah, Guillermo and Dad? How do each of them finally break free?
15. When Jude is in Oscar’s bedroom, she comes across an essay he wrote for an art history class called "The Ecstatic Impulse of the Artist". What do you think the essay was about? How do you think this idea might connect to the story and the characters, especially Noah? What do you think Guillermo means when he says to Jude, "I think maybe your brother is the ecstatic impulse." Further, what do you think Sandy means when he says artists wish with their hands? Lastly, what do you think Guillermo means when he says (implies) art can remake the world? Do you think it can?
16. This quote by the poet Rumi is one of four that begins the novel: "Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there." Who meets in the field beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing? Do Noah and Jude? Noah and his father? Jude and her mother? Dianna and Benjamin? Discuss this quote as it pertains to the relationships in the novel.
(Questions written by Annie Everall, Authors Aloud UK, www.authorsalouduk.co.uk © 2015 .)
top of page (summary)
Fangirl
Rainbow Rowell, 2013
St. Martin's Press
342 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250030955
Summary
A coming-of-age tale of fanfiction, family and first love.
In Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl, Cath is a Simon Snow fan. Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan, but for Cath, being a fan is her life—and she’s really good at it. She and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it’s what got them through their mother leaving.
Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fan fiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere.
Cath’s sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can’t let go. She doesn’t want to.
Now that they’re going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn’t want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She’s got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend, a fiction-writing professor who thinks fan fiction is the end of the civilized world, a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words.... And she can’t stop worrying about her dad, who’s loving and fragile and has never really been alone.
For Cath, the question is: Can she do this? Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? And does she even want to move on if it means leaving Simon Snow behind? (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1973-74
• Where—Omaha, Nebraska, USA
• Education—University of Nebraska-Lincoln
• Currently—lives in Omaha
Rainbow Rowell is an American author of young adult and adult contemporary novels. Her first novel Attachments, published in 2011, is a contemporary romantic comedy about a company's IT guy who falls in love with a woman whose email he has been monitoring. Kirkus Reviews listed it as one of the outstanding debuts of 2011.
In 2013 Rowell published two young adult novels: Eleanor & Park and Fangirl. Both were chosen by the New York Times as being some of the best young adult fiction of the year. Eleanor & Park was also chosen by Amazon as one of the 10 best books of 2013, and as Goodreads' best young adult fiction of the year. DreamWorks and Carla Hacken are planning a movie, for which Rowell has been asked to write the screenplay.
Rowell completed the first draft of Fangirl for National Novel Writing Month in 2011. It was chosen as the inaugural selection for Tumblr's reblog book club. Landline, Rowell's fourth novel, a contemporary adult novel about a marriage in trouble, was released in 2014.
Controversy
Rowell's work also gained attention in 2013 when a parents' group at a Minnesota high school challenged Eleanor & Park, and Rowell herself was disinvited to a library event; however, a panel ultimately determined that the book could stay on library shelves. Rowell noted in an interview that the material that these parents were calling "profane" was what many kids in difficult situations realistically had to deal with, and that "when these people call Eleanor & Park an obscene story, I feel like they’re saying that rising above your situation isn’t possible."
The book has also come under fire from a multitude of social justice and Korean activist sources because of its fetishization of Korean bodies (particularly "feminine" masculinity), misunderstanding and misrepresentation of Asian diasporic and half-Asian experiences, and overt tones of white saviour complex. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 7/14/2014.)
Visit the author's website.
Book Reviews
Rowell…specializes in young misfits charting their way in the world. She doesn't disappoint here. Though the theme of a young writer finding her voice may be familiar, Rowell brings to it fresh humor, heart and more than a few surprises. Cath's relationships, tender and untidy, ring true.
Jessica Bruder - New York Times Book Review
With an unflinching voice, Cath navigates the lonely road of her freshman year at college.... Rowell...create[s] a funny and tender coming-of-age story that’s also the story of a writer finding her voice. Rowell makes all of Cath’s relationships...touching and utterly real. (Ages 13 & up.)
Publishers Weekly
This charming coming-of-age novel tells the story of a painfully shy teen who prefers the fantasy world of fanfiction to reality.... The plot is multilayered and filled with complex subjects...handled in a realistic manner, and the writing effortlessly and seamlessly weaves these threads together (Gr 9 & up). —Heather E. Miller Cover, Homewood Public Library, AL
School Library Journal
(Starred review.) The novel's brilliance comes from Rowell's reimagining of a coming-of-age story's stock characters as dynamic and temperamental individuals—which adroitly parallels Cath's own fan-fiction writing process. Rowell challenges readers to love characters who are loyal, vulnerable and funny—but also realistically flawed (Fiction 14 & up).
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.)
top of page (summary)
Divergent (Divergent Series 1)
Veronica Roth, 2011
HarperCollins
576 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062024039
Summary
In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue—
♦ Candor (the honest)
♦ Abnegation (the selfless)
♦ Dauntless (the brave)
♦ Amity (the peaceful)
♦ Erudite (the intelligent)
On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is—she can't have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.
During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles to determine who her friends really are. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death.
And as she discovers a growing conflict that threatens to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves… or it might destroy her. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—August 19, 1988
• Where—New York City, New York, USA
• Raised—Barrington, Illinois
• Education—B.A., Northwest University
• Currently—lives in Chicago, Illinois
Veronica Roth (born ) is an American novelist and short story writer known for her debut New York Times bestselling Divergent trilogy.
Roth, the youngest of three children, was born in New York City and raised primarily in Barrington, Illinois. Her parents divorced when she was five years old. Roth's maternal grandparents were Polish concentration camp survivors during World War II. Their religious convictions pushed Roth's mother away from religion, but Veronica attended a Christian Bible study during her high school years, and has remained a Christain.
Roth graduated from Barrington High School. After attending a year of college at Carleton College, she transferred to Northwestern University for its creative writing program and wrote her first book, Divergent, while on winter break in her senior year. She married photographer Nelson Fitch in 2011. They reside in the Chicago area.
Career
Roth is best known for her trilogy of novels: Divergent (2011), Insurgent (2012), and Allegiant (2013).
She is the recipient of the Goodreads 2011 Choice Award and the Best of 2012 in the category Young Adult Fantasy & Science Fiction and also Best Goodreads Author in 2012. Her career took off rapidly with the success of her first novel, with the movie rights sold before she graduated from college. (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 7/5/2014.)
Book Reviews
(Starred review.) [An] edgy debut (definitely not for the fainthearted).... [T]he riveting and complex story of a teenage girl forced to choose, at age 16, between her routinized, selfless family and the adventurous, unrestrained future she longs for.... [A] memorable, unpredictable journey from which it is nearly impossible to turn away (Ages 14 & up).
Publishers Weekly
In a future Chicago, the population is divided into five factions...each of which believes its opposite is the root of human evil. Sixteen-year-olds are tested for aptitude and must choose whether to remain in their birth faction or select another.... The plot, scenes, and characters are different [than Susan Collins' series] but the colors are the same and just as rich (Grades 9 & up). —Eric Norton, McMillan Memorial Library, Wisconsin Rapids, WI
School Library Journal
The plot clips along at an addictive pace, with steady jolts of brutal violence and swoony romance. Despite the constant assurance that Tris is courageous, clever and kind, her own first-person narration displays a blank personality. No matter.... Fans snared by the ratcheting suspense will be unable to resist speculating on their own factional allegiance.... (Ages 14 & up)
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What purpose does each of the five factions serve in society? What personality types are drawn toward each faction? Do you think these factions represent every basic personality type and fulfill all the basic needs of people? If not, what faction(s) would you create to fill in any gaps?
2. What was the reason behind the creation of the factions? Do you think the factions are working “toward a better society and a better world” (p. 44) as they say they are? What about the structure seems to be working for Tris’s society? What doesn’t seem to be working at all?
3. What faction do you think you would have been born into, given your family and its values? Which faction would you select at your Choosing Ceremony? Why? How would you feel about making a decision that would determine your life’s course at the age of sixteen?
4. What choices have you made that have changed you? What future choices will you also make, and how do you think that they will change you?
5. How does the idea of “faction before blood” come into play throughout the book? Do you think this idea has a place in today’s society, or is it contrary to what most people believe? In our society, what ideas and beliefs are people loyal to in the way Tris’s society is loyal to the conceptof the factions?
6. Why is Tris’s government run only by members of Abnegation? Do you think this is a good idea? Do you agree with her father’s statement that “valuing knowledge above all else results in a lust for power, and that leads men into dark and empty places” (p. 35)? Why or why not?
7. What does it mean to be factionless in Tris’s society? How does a person become factionless?
8. Tris says about Candor, “It must require bravery to be honest all the time” (p. 62). Do you agree? Which do you think is a braver faction, Dauntless or Candor? Would you like to live in a society like Candor, where everyone tells the truth no matter how hard it is to hear?
9. During initiation, is it selfish of Tris to crave victory, or is it brave? Do Tris’s friends have a right to be jealous when she’s ranked above them? If you were Tris, would you forgive them for their reactions?
10. How does initiation change and transform Tris? Do you think she made the right faction choice? How do you think she might have changed if she had chosen one of the other factions?
11. What is the difference between being fearless and learning to control your fears? Do you believe anyone can be truly fearless? What does Tris mean when she says that “half of bravery is perspective” (p. 458)?
12. Is Four’s desire to be “brave, and selfless, and smart, and kind, and honest” (p. 405) realistic in the society in which he lives? Think of examples of people in our own world who successfully bridge different cultures, perspectives, or ways of living.
13. Tris’s mom says, “Human beings as a whole cannot be good for long before the bad creeps back in and poisons us again” (p. 441). Do you agree or disagree? Why?
14. At the beginning of the book, Tris does not understand what it means to be Divergent. How do you think she would explain it by the end of the book?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)
top of page (summary)
Love and Other Foreign Words
Erin McCahan, 2014
Dial Books
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780803740518
Summary
Equal parts comedy and coming of age—a whip-smart, big-hearted, laugh-out-loud love story about sisters, friends, and what it means to love at all.
Can anyone be truly herself—or truly in love—in a language that's not her own?
Sixteen-year-old Josie lives her life in translation. She speaks High School, College, Friends, Boyfriends, Break-ups, and even the language of Beautiful Girls. But none of these is her native tongue—the only people who speak that are her best friend Stu and her sister Kate.
So when Kate gets engaged to an epically insufferable guy, how can Josie see it as anything but the mistake of a lifetime? Kate is determined to bend Josie to her will for the wedding; Josie is determined to break Kate and her fiance up. As battles are waged over secrets and semantics, Josie is forced to examine her feelings for the boyfriend who says he loves her, the sister she loves but doesn't always like, and the best friend who hasn't said a word—at least not in a language Josie understands. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1967-68
• Where—East Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA
• Rasied—Bexley, Ohio
• Education—B.A., Capital University
• Currently—lives near Columbus, Ohio
Erin McCahan is an Ohio-dwelling, unabashedly Styx-loving, full-time writer who enjoys a variety of hobbies, excluding role-playing, sticky things, and karaoke. She lives in New Albany, near Columbus, with her husband. (From the publisher.)
Visit the author's website.
Book Reviews
(Starred review.) Fifteen-year-old Josie Sheridan may have a genius-level IQ, but that doesn’t mean she understands everything. One concept she has trouble grasping is romantic love, especially when it comes to her older sister Kate’s inexplicable attraction to her nerdy librarian fiance, Geoff. Josie is sure that Geoff is completely wrong for Kate.
Publishers Weekly
Josie Sheridan, 15.4 years old, knows a lot about social language. With a schedule that involves both high school and college courses, she has learned to adapt her communication style in order to fit in with both groups. However, Josie can't seem to wrap her head around the language of Love.... [For those] who want a quirky love story (grade 8 up). —Kimberly Castle-Alberts, Hudson Library & Historical Society, OH
Library Journal
Fifteen-year-old Josie....loves languages of all kinds, but has to work hard at understanding the current language of her peers.... Even though Josie is “different,” she has friends and family who accept her without her having to downplay her intelligence, which makes it easy to empathize with her inner struggle to figure out her life (ages 11 to 18). —Jane Van Wiemokly
Voya
Josie's a rarity in teen literature, a genuine original. Being gifted sets her apart. Armored by arch mannerisms, trying to control what can't be controlled, wanting and fearing love, she's one of us. Lively characters and a satisfying plot foil reader expectations in the best possible way (ages 12-18).
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 Hear and Now
Ann Brashares, 2014
Random House Children's
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780385736800
Summary
An unforgettable epic romantic thriller about a girl from the future who might be able to save the world...if she lets go of the one thing she’s found to hold on to.
Follow the rules. Remember what happened. Never fall in love.
This is the story of seventeen-year-old Prenna James, who immigrated to New York when she was twelve. Except Prenna didn’t come from a different country. She came from a different time—a future where a mosquito-borne illness has mutated into a pandemic, killing millions and leaving the world in ruins.
Prenna and the others who escaped to the present day must follow a strict set of rules: never reveal where they’re from, never interfere with history, and never, ever be intimate with anyone outside their community. Prenna does as she’s told, believing she can help prevent the plague that will one day ravage the earth.
But everything changes when Prenna falls for Ethan Jarves.
From Ann Brashares, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, The Here and Now is thrilling, exhilarating, haunting, and heartbreaking—and a must-read novel of the year. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—July 30, 1967
• Where—Alexandria, Virginia, USA
• Raised—Chevy Chase, Maryland
• Education—Barnard College
• Currently—lives in New York, New York
Ann Brashares is an American writer of young adult fiction, best known as the author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series.
She was born in Alexandria, Virginia, and grew up in Chevy Chase, Maryland. She attended elementary and high school at the Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C. After studying philosophy at Barnard College, she worked as an editor for 17th Street Productions. 17th Street was acquired by Alloy Entertainment, and following the acquisition she worked briefly for Alloy.
After leaving Alloy she wrote The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, which became an international best seller. It was followed with three more titles in the "Pants" series, the last of which, Forever in Blue, was released in January 2007. The first book in the series was made into a film in 2005, and a second film based on the other three titles in the series was released in August 2008.
Brashares' first adult novel, The Last Summer (of You and Me) was released in 2007. The first companion book to the Sisterhood series, 3 Willows: The Sisterhood Grows was published in 2009, and the second companion book, Sisterhood Everlasting was published in 2011.
A second novel for adults, My Name is Memory was published in 2010 and has been optioned for film. Her next book, a young-adult time-travel novel, The Here and Now, was published in 2014. She lives in New York with her artist husband, Jacob Collins. They have four children.
Although Brashares writes primarily fiction, she has contributed two 80-page biographies to the nonfiction book series Techies—Linus Torvalds, Software Rebel and Steve Jobs Thinks Different, both issued in 2001. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 2/27/2014.)
Book Reviews
Contemporary dystopian fiction often forsakes larger issues for an intense focus on individuals, and that's true here. The science behind climate change, sexually-transmitted microbes and environmental disaster is skimmed over, but the narrative's strength remains in the small, observed details of the everyday…While primarily an appealing romantic thriller, The Here and Now also serves as a potent reminder that we inherit the future we buy with our actions today.
Cassandra Clare- New York Times Book Review
From the author who brought us The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants come the gripping page-turner about a girl who’s willing to risk it all for love and the fate of the world.
Teen Vogue
[A] fast-paced, gripping, and romantic novel about a girl from a future that seems eerily possible.... Brashares focuses on Prenna and Ethan’s burgeoning romance, rather than the nitty-gritty details of her time-travel premise, and her fans will be happy to find that her prose is as resonant and realistic as ever (Ages 12–up).
Publishers Weekly
Prenna is smart, self-deprecating, and believably mesmerized by a first love characterized by mutual respect and intimacy. The less detailed female friendship subplot, though, is all the more disappointing.... In terms of sci-fi, Brashares crafts a plausible future and satisfyingly metes out time-travel plotting. Much of the science is foggy, though, and the exposition-heavy denouement feels rushed. —Nicole R. Steeves, Chicago P.L.
School Library Journal
Brashares...builds on her adroit adolescent characterization and ear for teen dialogue and transports them into an exciting time-travel adventure complete with murderers to thwart and mysteries to solve.
Booklist
[A] lightning-paced sci-fi time-travel romp.... Unfortunately, [Brashares] relies too much on dei ex machina.... Those willing to overlook such shortcuts will surely be swept into the whirlwind romance and breathlessly turn pages.... [This] quirky tale of love and time travel demands that readers totally suspend disbelief to enjoy some of the more contrived plot elements (Ages 13-16).
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.)