Stephenie Harrison

Fiction

A Brontë bicentennial

Feature by Stephenie Harrison

It’s hard to name a novel more beloved than Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. Billed as one of the first feminist love stories, it has inspired countless sighs from lovers of literature over the centuries.

April 21, 2016, marks the 200th anniversary of Brontë’s birth, and two timely new releases honor Charlotte and her family’s enduring legacy. Though these two books have very different tones and approaches, their shared affection for the Brontës unites them. 

The setup of Catherine Lowell’s debut novel, The Madwoman Upstairs, is an English major’s fantasy come true. Heroine Samantha Whipple is an awkward bookworm who heads off to Oxford University to read literature—and just happens to be the Brontës’ last living descendent. As she butts heads with her brooding-yet-irresistible tutor, a mysterious package from her deceased father arrives. Suddenly Sam is on a scavenger hunt that promises to lead her to her inheritance: items belonging to the Brontë estate that Sam has always considered nothing but a rumor . . . until now. 

Crammed with myriad allusions to the entire Brontë clan’s canon, Lowell’s novel will appeal not only to Brontë megafans, but also to readers who like a healthy helping of literary criticism alongside their fiction. When Sam isn’t off solving her father’s cryptic clues, she’s arguing with her professor about how to correctly read literature in general—and the Brontës’ works in particular. 

Filled with hyperlexic ripostes and an academic heroine who is the dictionary definition of quirky, this is a story that will please readers of Marisha Pessl’s Special Topics in Calamity Physics.

Lyndsay Faye’s Jane Steele is a very different form of tribute. Just a few pages in, Faye’s Jane utters the line, “Reader, I murdered him,” which tells you exactly the kind of book you are in for. A somewhat satirical riff on Jane Eyre, the novel reimagines Brontë’s iconic heroine with not only a will of iron but also the heart of a hot-blooded killer. This Jane embraces her “wicked” side and isn’t afraid to avenge herself against those who do her wrong. (Watch out, teachers at Lowood.)

Readers worried that Jane Steele is simply a retread of Jane Eyre with more blood and gore, à la Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, fear not. Just when you think you know what is coming next, Jane Steele takes things in a completely different direction. Faye is also the author of four acclaimed historical mysteries, and she juxtaposes a textured Victorian setting with more modern (and thus, more ambiguous) morality. Jane Steele is equal parts irreverent and refreshing. It’s also, remarkably, no less of a page-turner than the classic to which it pays homage.

 

This article was originally published in the April 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

April 21, 2016, marks the 200th anniversary of Brontë’s birth, and two timely new releases honor Charlotte and her family’s enduring legacy. Though these two books have very different tones and approaches, their shared affection for the Brontës unites them.
Fiction

Tracing the role of women through time and place

Review by Stephenie Harrison

Some books lend themselves to speed-reading, urging you to devour the story with pages turned at a breakneck pace. But other books require a more leisurely perusal, one in which you nibble at the prose, allowing yourself to linger over writing that has been so skillfully crafted. Given that Kate Walbert’s latest novel begins with suffragist Dorothy Townsend starving herself to death in the name of her cause, it is perhaps unsurprising that A Short History of Women falls into the latter camp.

Beginning with Dorothy’s death, A Short History of Women follows the lives of the Townsend women through several generations, skipping back and forth between Dorothy’s struggle in England at the turn of the 20th century all the way up to her great-granddaughters facing their own travails in modern-day America. Through these interlocking sketches, Walbert creates a dual history—one that is personal to each Townsend woman and uniquely her own, while also universal to all women no matter their time or place. Whether campaigning for women’s rights, finding success as a chemist and professor, protesting the war in Iraq, or arranging play dates on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, each woman grapples with finding her purpose and asserting herself in the world around her. Through this wide-sweeping lens, Walbert deftly examines “The Woman Question,” that is the ever-shifting, always evolving role of women in society.

Walbert’s prose is intricate but fluid, effortlessly adjusting in style to evoke the various time periods while shuttling the reader backward and forward through history. Lyrical and dreamlike, her writing is often punctuated by astonishing turns of phrase and vivid imagery. Although her topic will particularly appeal to female readers (this would be a wonderful book club selection), her writing is so multifaceted, so honest, that any reader looking for a thoughtful and challenging read will be rewarded. At one point in the novel, Dorothy’s granddaughter remarks, “What I am trying to do is to aim for something real . . . something that is not just an approximation of real.” One cannot help but feel that this was also Walbert’s motivation in writing A Short History of Women; fortunately for readers, she succeeds, demonstrating that even within the pages of fiction, truth can be found.

Stephenie Harrison lives in Nashville. 

Some books lend themselves to speed-reading, urging you to devour the story with pages turned at a breakneck pace. But other books require a more leisurely perusal, one in which you nibble at the prose, allowing yourself to linger over writing that has been so…

Fiction

A very strange man, indeed

Review by Stephenie Harrison

When it comes to endearingly odd protagonists, no one beats Matthew Dicks. In his first novel, Something Missing, he introduced readers to Martin, a cat burglar with OCD leanings, who made his living through petty theft, pilfering rolls of toilet paper, half-used bottles of salad dressing, postage stamps and the occasional big ticket item—like a rarely used crystal gravy boat—to sell on eBay. Now in Unexpectedly, Milo, Dicks introduces Milo Slade, a man who makes Martin look downright normal.

Ever since a childhood party at which Milo was overcome with the unbearable urge to pop his friend’s birthday balloons (an event that did not go over well at all), Milo has been grappling not only with bizarre and undeniable demands, he’s also struggled with keeping his peculiar compulsions hidden from the world. Married for several years, Milo has prided himself on keeping his intermittent needs to bowl a strike, pop open jars of jams, or occasionally belt out “99 Luftballons” karaoke-style a secret from his wife. Unfortunately for Milo, his preoccupation with keeping his true self locked away means he’s missed many of the warning signs that his wife has been increasingly exasperated with their marriage—that is until she tells him they need some time apart. Initially unable to fathom such a drastic departure from the comfortable life he is established, Milo eventually begins to revel in the liberty of being able to indulge his behavioral quirks without fear. In fact, soon enough Milo finds he has more important things on his mind that reconciling with his wife when he stumbles across an abandoned video camera in the park. On a whim, Milo begins to watch the accompanying tapes, which turn out to be a deeply personal video diary, in which a woman Milo affectionately dubs “Freckles” unburdens her deepest secrets and fears. Before he has time to second guess himself, Milo finds himself on a journey to find Freckles and return her tapes, while also doing his part to help her see that the truth can set her free. If only such absolution were possible for Milo himself.

Reading a Matthew Dicks novel always proves to be an unadulterated joy, and Unexpectedly, Milo, is no exception. Dicks’ gift lies in his ability to take superficially eccentric characters and dig beneath their peculiarities to develop full-bodied, lovable human beings. Rather than feeling gimmicky, Dicks' approach to his his characters’ off-center habits provides insight into broader truths on human nature and the things that make us tick. Readers join Milo on a riveting and tender voyage into the heart of insecurity—the fear we all carry inside us that no one will ever truly accept us for who we are. Filled with humor and sweetness, Unexpectedly, Milo reminds us that happiness can be found in the strangest of places. 

When it comes to endearingly odd protagonists, no one beats Matthew Dicks. In his first novel, Something Missing, he introduced readers to Martin, a cat burglar with OCD leanings, who made his living through petty theft, pilfering rolls of toilet paper, half-used bottles of salad dressing,…

FictionLiterary Fiction

In Every Mirror She’s Black

Review by Stephenie Harrison

Nigerian American author Lọlá Ákínmádé Åkerström’s debut novel is as much a liberating battle cry as it is a searing, multifaceted examination of the hearts and minds of Black women navigating white-dominated spaces. Told from multiple perspectives, In Every Mirror She’s Black follows three Black women whose lives intersect in Sweden due to one wealthy white man named Jonny von Lundin.

Kemi, a first-generation American, is offered a lucrative position as Jonny's marketing firm's new diversity and inclusion adviser after a campaign's racial insensitivity makes international headlines. Brittany-Rae is a former model now working as a first-class flight attendant, which is where she first captures Jonny’s attention and is soon swept up in a passionate romance with him that appears to be the stuff of fairy tales. Finally, there is Muna, a Muslim refugee from Somalia who is the only surviving member of her family to be granted asylum in Sweden and now carves out a living as a janitorial worker at Jonny’s company. 

Despite Kemi’s, Brittany-Rae’s and Muna’s vastly different backgrounds and circumstances, all three women initially believe that Sweden (and Jonny) could be the answer to their prayers and an opportunity for a fresh start, unburdened by their past and its traumas. Unfortunately, each woman soon learns that Sweden's “utopia” poses its own set of significant challenges and that its principles of inclusivity and tolerance only extend as far as the whitewashed homogeneity of the population. For immigrants and people of color, a hidden dark side roils just below Sweden’s glittering facade, transforming the country from refuge to prison for each of these women.

Åkerström, who moved to Sweden in 2009, has crafted an absorbing, if unsettling, narrative that dissects the realities of what it means to be a Black woman in the world today. She writes with genuine empathy for her characters and sheds light on their struggles with the understanding that there is no single Black experience. Rather than shying away from or oversimplifying difficult and complex topics, Åkerström has effectively packaged themes of racism, immigration, fetishism and otherness into an engrossing story that will enlighten its readers, regardless of their nationality or race. 

Lọlá Ákínmádé Åkerström’s debut novel is as much a battle cry as it is a searing examination of the hearts of Black women navigating white-dominated spaces.
FictionPopular Fiction

The Reading List

Review by Stephenie Harrison

Although Sara Nisha Adams makes her authorial debut with The Reading List, her connection to the world of books is not new. She has worked as a book editor and attributes her passion for reading to her early childhood, when she bonded with her grandfather over their shared love of literature. Not only did this relationship cultivate a lifelong case of bibliophilia, but it also served as the inspiration for The Reading List, a story about two lonely individuals whose initial common ground is, ironically, that neither has any interest in reading.

We first meet Mukesh, a widower who is grieving the passing of his beloved wife (who was a voracious reader) and finds himself increasingly alienated from the rest of his family. Desperate to form a connection with his bookish granddaughter, Mukesh heads to the local library to try to better understand her. There he meets Aleisha, a teenager who dreams of becoming a lawyer and views her summer position at the library with disdain. Following a disastrous first meeting with Mukesh, Aleisha stumbles upon a mysterious list of book titles, which she decides she will recommend to Mukesh and read alongside him as a means of making amends.

What begins as a whim soon transforms into a deeply enriching and gratifying experience. The books act as a lifeline for Mukesh and Aleisha as the two new friends navigate their personal tribulations. Reading is so often viewed as a solitary pursuit, but The Reading List turns that idea on its head, illustrating the ways one book can touch many lives and act as a shared point of empathy, uniting disparate individuals into a community.

In Adams’ gentle novel, there is no sorrow or trouble so great that a good book—and a supportive friend—cannot help, and it is never too late to become a reader. As an uplifting and tenderhearted celebration of libraries and the transformative power of books, The Reading List is particularly perfect for book clubs and sure to brighten any reader’s day.

Sara Nisha Adams' touching debut novel,The Reading List, illustrates the ways one book can act as a shared point of empathy, uniting individuals into a community.
FictionPopular Fiction

Malibu Rising

Review by Stephenie Harrison

Following the success of her recent novels The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & The Six, author Taylor Jenkins Reid has amassed a legion of fans that could put those of her titular heroines to shame. Readers have giddily gobbled up Reid’s romps through the glitz and glam of bygone Los Angeles and have been waiting with unbridled excitement for her next novel. In Malibu Rising, Reid capitalizes on her winning formula to create another bona fide hit, this time spinning a decadent family drama that revolves around a single life-changing day in 1983.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Summer reading 2021: 9 books to soak in this season

Every year, the four Riva siblings throw an epic end-of-summer bash, notorious for its excess and hedonism and the A-list guests who attend. This year, however, the party will be notable not merely for the debauchery on display (though there will be plenty of that) but also for the family drama, as some of the Rivas’ closely guarded secrets come to light. With the Riva mansion reduced to a smoldering pile of ashes come morning, it’s safe to say that nothing will ever be the same after this blowout.

As Reid ushers readers through this fateful day, we spend time with each of the Riva siblings: Nina, the hyper-responsible eldest sister and famed surf model whose husband left her for another woman; Jay, the superstar surfer who appears to have it all but whose life is secretly falling apart; Hud, a kindhearted and gentle photographer whose new girlfriend is undoubtedly going to make some waves; and Kit, the youngest and perennially overlooked sister who itches for a chance to shine on her own merit.

Reid provides additional depth and nuance by intertwining the siblings’ 1983 narrative with a timeline that traces the tragic relationship of their parents, June and legendary singer Mick Riva. Malibu Rising is packed with plenty of scintillating scandal, but Reid cultivates real empathy for her characters, who form the tender heart that beats at the novel’s core and are its greatest achievement.

Malibu Rising is a juicy, irresistible book that will sweep readers away.

Malibu Rising is packed with plenty of scintillating scandal, but Taylor Jenkins Reid’s irresistible characters are the novel’s greatest success.
FictionFamily Drama

Swimming Back to Trout River

Review by Stephenie Harrison

A little over halfway through Swimming Back to Trout River, readers encounter a chapter titled “The Improviser’s Guide to Untranslatable Words” in which they are introduced to several Chinese metaphysical terms. The first, yuanfen, is a subtler counterpart to the concept of fate. Rather than certain actions or outcomes being predestined and set in stone, yuanfen more loosely and fluidly binds people and events together in a meaningful coincidence, perhaps only for a fleeting period of time.

The second term, zaohua, refers to an inherent force of progress that flows through the world, cycling through creation, destruction and rebirth. And the third is ciji, which refers to a catalyst or event, most commonly a psychological trauma. Grasping the nuances of these three concepts is the key to unlocking a richer reading experience and deeper understanding of Linda Rui Feng’s ambitious and impressive first novel.

Set against the background of the Cultural Revolution, Swimming Back to Trout River tells the story of a family separated by more than physical distance. We follow the lives of Momo and Cassia, an estranged married couple that has immigrated to the United States, leaving their daughter, Junie, with her grandparents in rural China until they are able to collect her. As Feng explores the present-day distance that has grown between Momo, Cassia and Junie, she poignantly traces how the passions and personal sorrows from each of their pasts have shaped and influenced their current situations.

Sensitively exploring themes of grief, hope and resilience, Swimming Back to Trout River is a symphony of a novel that is operatic in scope and elevated by Feng’s artful writing. The author’s experience as a professor of Chinese cultural history is an additional asset, as she illustrates and celebrates Chinese sensibilities within the framework of a multilayered, deeply human story that transcends borders.

Swimming Back to Trout River is a symphony of a novel that is operatic in scope and elevated by Linda Rui Feng’s artful writing.
FictionComing of Age

Gold Diggers

Review by Stephenie Harrison

Shakespeare cautioned that all that glitters is not gold. This lesson runs deep in Sanjena Sathian’s debut novel, Gold Diggers, and many characters learn it the hard way. Happily for readers, Shakespeare’s warning does not apply to the novel itself, a dazzling and delightful work of fiction by an exciting new literary talent.

Teenager Neil Narayan has spent most of his life feeling distinctly average and like he doesn’t quite fit in. Growing up in Georgia to immigrant parents, he is overshadowed by his magnetic and determined older sister, who, annoyingly, seems to have reconciled being both Indian and American. Despite the lofty ambitions that his family and community have for him, Neil struggles to find a drive for anything other than the girl next door, Anita Dayal.

All this changes, however, when Neil stumbles upon the secret that Anita and her mother have been keeping: an ancient alchemical potion that incorporates stolen gold, transferring the ambition and winning traits of the gold’s original owners onto the drinker. Although this potion seems to be the answer to Neil’s prayers, it soon awakens a powerful thirst within him that will not be easily slaked, no matter the consequences for himself or others.

Sathian has produced a beguiling elixir with Gold Diggers, skillfully stirring myth into a playful yet powerful modern-day examination of the American dream and the second-generation citizens who pursue it. A fabulist amalgam of The Great Gatsby and The Catcher in the Rye, it’s an engrossing cautionary tale as well as a shrewd appraisal of what we consider success—and the moral sacrifices we make to achieve it.

Imaginative and intoxicating, Gold Diggers richly rewards its readers.

Shakespeare cautioned that all that glitters is not gold. This lesson runs deep in Sanjena Sathian’s debut novel.
FictionPopular Fiction

The Lost Manuscript

Review by Stephenie Harrison

If you’re the type of reader who self-soothes by losing yourself in a book and are in need of a potent comfort read, French author Cathy Bonidan’s English-language debut novel is just what the doctor ordered. Exceedingly charming and guaranteed to bring a smile to your face, The Lost Manuscript is a multilayered testament to the life-changing properties of a single book when it reaches the right reader.

Such is the case when Anne-Lise Briard stumbles upon a forgotten manuscript while on vacation in northwest France. After devouring the story, she is inspired to forward the manuscript to an address scribbled on one of its pages, hoping that she might gain some insight into the provenance of the manuscript. Never in her wildest dreams could she have anticipated that her letter would reach the manuscript’s author himself, who confesses that the last time he saw this manuscript was 30 years ago while on a flight to Montreal and that it had been only half-finished at the time. Intrigued, Anne-Lise doggedly traces the path of the manuscript to uncover its mysterious second author, a pursuit that encourages new relationships (and in some cases, romances) to flourish as she contacts the numerous individuals whose lives have been shaped by the manuscript over the years.

The Lost Manuscript is first and foremost a love letter to literature and readers. Eternally hopeful, this buoyant epistolary novel is refreshingly devoid of cynicism and instead celebrates the ways in which books can enrich our lives and foster connection. Bonidan’s parceling of a genuinely intriguing mystery and gentle romance into bite-size, elegantly written chapters makes for a swift and captivating read that, despite its sweetness and endearing quaintness, is not without substance.

The spiritual successor to the epistolary classic 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff, The Lost Manuscript is a soul-satisfying book that is sure to be loved.

If you’re the type of reader who self-soothes by losing yourself in a book and are in need of a potent comfort read, French author Cathy Bonidan’s English-language debut novel is just what the doctor ordered.
FictionComing of Age

Before the Ruins

Review by Stephenie Harrison

When it comes to a mystery, is there any better setting than the English countryside? Something about the milieu continues to inspire stories of cunning crimes that readers just can’t get enough of. In the case of Before the Ruins, Victoria Gosling’s devilish debut, an abandoned English manor house sets the stage for a cracking mystery involving a missing friend, a long-lost diamond necklace and the secrets that tie the two together across decades.

When they were children, Andy and Peter were as thick as thieves, but their friendship has only tenuously survived their rocky transition to adulthood. So it is quite unexpected when Andy receives a frantic call from Peter’s mother informing Andy that he has disappeared without a trace. Andy reluctantly agrees to help, and her hunt for Peter leads her to suspect that his disappearance is tied to a game they played as teenagers with two other friends, Emma and Marcus. Andy has tried very hard to move on from her past, but it now seems that in order to find and reconcile with Peter, she must turn to their shared history for answers.

Through Andy’s eyes, we revisit the summer when, galvanized by the story of a priceless necklace that’s gone missing, the four friends played a recurring game of hide-and-seek with a replica of the diamonds around the grounds of a local English estate. Each was convinced that it would only be a matter of time before they stumbled across the real jewels. And perhaps they might have, had not the arrival of a charming stranger and subsequent shocking accident ended the game once and for all—and destroyed their friendships in its wake.

Though the main narrative is propelled by the mysteries of Peter and the diamonds, the true soul of Before the Ruins is found in its contemplation of existential themes such as grief, guilt, desire, friendship and loss. There are plenty of bombshells to titillate and thrill over the course of the story, but many of the most rewarding discoveries come not from the grand reveals in the final act but from moments when Andy gains depth and dimension through revelations of her most closely guarded secrets and memories.

Richly atmospheric and exquisitely written, Before the Ruins is wistful and haunting, hopeful and beautiful. Confidently contributing to the tradition of British mysteries, Gosling has delivered a tale that will satisfy fans of Tana French and Paula Hawkins.

An abandoned English manor house sets the stage for a cracking mystery involving a missing friend, a long-lost diamond necklace and the secrets that tie the two together across decades.
FictionComing of Age

Earthlings

Review by Stephenie Harrison

Japanese author Sayaka Murata first made waves with American readers with her 2018 English-language debut, Convenience Store Woman, a startlingly bizarre meditation on Japanese culture and the pressure to conform above all else. Murata’s latest novel, Earthlings, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori, continues to explore life on the fringes in Japan through an even darker and weirder lens, one that will take most readers on a wild ride far beyond the outermost limit of their comfort zones.

Superficially, Earthlings is the coming-of-age story of a young girl named Natsuki and her cousin, Yuu, who process and explain their sense of alienation from their families by internalizing the belief that they are both actually from another planet. The subsequent fallout of this mindset is a series of increasingly disturbing and shocking events that heighten the duo’s inability to fit into conventional and conservative Japanese society and their overall disassociation from the world. To say any more would spoil the book, as so much of the story’s grotesque joy depends on the surprise at just how perverse things can get. It is a book that must be experienced firsthand, but it is also a book for which a single trigger warning would not be adequate, as it enthusiastically challenges most of our most deeply held societal taboos.

Whereas Murata’s goal with Convenience Store Woman may have been to gently unsettle her readers, it’s clear that Earthlings’ mission is to actively disturb. By disrupting her readers’ complacency, Murata allows us to better empathize with the misfits she champions. As her characters’ unease and discomfort becomes our own, we gain greater awareness of how it feels to be an outsider looking in.

The journey is often rather harrowing and bewildering and will appeal to few readers. But for adventurous readers who revel in a book that defies expectations and dares to be outlandishly different, Earthlings is a mind- and soul-expanding countercultural battle cry that is utterly one of a kind.

Sayaka Murata’s latest novel, Earthlings, continues to explore life on the fringes in Japan through an even darker and weirder lens, one that will take most readers on a wild ride far beyond the outermost limit of their comfort zones.
FictionThriller

These Violent Delights

Review by Stephenie Harrison

Few novelists make an impression as quickly and effectively as Micah Nemerever does in his stirring debut, an explosively erotic and erudite thriller. Kicking off with an electrifying prologue, These Violent Delights is infused with a thick sense of dread and urgency that does not let up until the final page. 

The novel centers on two social outcasts, Paul and Julian, who first connect in their freshman ethics class in 1970s Pittsburgh. Painfully shy and awkward, Paul gravitates toward Julian’s effortless charisma and good looks like a moth to a flame. Much to the consternation of their families, the boys’ friendship soon morphs into something far more intimate and dangerously co-dependent, as each amplifies the other’s worst ideologies, insecurities and impulses. As their relationship becomes increasingly destructive, Paul begins to search for an act of fealty that will irrevocably bond him to Julian, but neither is prepared for the devastation their act of devotion will yield.

Channeling masters of suspense like Patricia Highsmith and Alfred Hitchcock, Nemerever ratchets up the narrative tension at a deliberately agonizing pace as he unspools the story of Paul and Julian’s ill-fated relationship, all leading up to the night teased in the novel’s opening pages. The two young men frequently engage in deeply cerebral conversations ranging from philosophy and psychology to entomology, and the narrative lends itself well to close reading, as often the most critical developments between the two men stem from the subtext of these weighty talks. 

Though the escalating relationship between Paul and Julian is mesmerizing in its own right, Nemerever’s novel so effectively evokes a state of unease that many readers will keep turning pages in desperate pursuit of the tension-breaking relief that can only come from seeing the story to its conclusion. Aptly titled, These Violent Delights is exhilarating, but not without pain and peril.

Few novelists make an impression as quickly and effectively as Micah Nemerever does in his stirring debut, an explosively erotic and erudite thriller.
FictionPopular Fiction

What You Wish For

Review by Stephenie Harrison

Katherine Center, reigning queen of comfort reads, returns with an exuberant new novel that will have readers rejoicing. What You Wish For is a bona fide explosion of happiness packaged in book form.

Ensconced in the free-spirited island town of Galveston, Texas, Samantha Casey is living the life of her dreams. Working as a school librarian, Sam is like a second daughter to the Kempner School’s founders, Max and Babette, and she feels like she’s finally found the family she’s always craved. However, when Max tragically dies, Sam’s personal and professional life is thrown into complete upheaval. 

Then Max’s replacement is announced, and Sam can’t decide what’s worse: that her unrequited crush, Duncan Carpenter, is back in her life and is now her boss, or that this new Duncan is nothing like the man she remembers. Gone is the sweet, goofy man with an infectious joie de vivre. Duncan 2.0 is an authoritarian killjoy who is obsessed with safety and intent on transforming Kempner into a glorified prison.

Sam decides to fight for her school and her students, launching a “joy offensive” on Duncan to help him remember who he used to be. If she happens to lose her heart to him all over again in the process—well, that’s a risk she’ll have to take.

A compassionate story of grief and resilience, What You Wish For is also a vital reminder that joy is not just something that happens to us but also something we have the power to choose. As Max always told Sam, we must “never miss a chance to celebrate,” even when things get tough. Ultimately, that is what Center has created for her readers: a quirky confection that celebrates life in all its imperfect glory and delivers a much-needed dose of optimism.

Katherine Center, reigning queen of comfort reads, returns with an exuberant new novel that will have readers rejoicing. What You Wish For is a bona fide explosion of happiness packaged in book form.

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