en-US Mon, 12 Aug 2024 19:03:56 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 61362722 An incisive, deeply resonant debut novel about a nonconsensual sexual encounter that propels one woman’s final semester at an elite New England college into controversy and chaos—and into an ill-advised affair with a married professor.

It’s 1998 and Isabel Rosen, the only daughter of a Lower East Side appetizing store owner, has one semester left at Wilder College, a prestigious school in New Hampshire. Desperate to shed her working-class roots and still mourning the death of her mother four years earlier, Isabel has always felt like an outsider at Wilder but now, in her final semester, she believes she has found her place—until a nonconsensual sexual encounter with one of the only other Jewish students on campus leaves her reeling.

Enter R. H. Connelly, a once-famous poet and Isabel’s writing professor, a man with secrets of his own. Connelly makes Isabel feel seen, beautiful, talented: the woman she longs to become. His belief in her ignites a belief in herself, and the two begin an affair that shakes the foundation of who Isabel thinks she is, for better and worse. As the lives of the adults around her slowly come apart, Isabel discovers that the line between youth and adulthood is less defined than she thought.

A coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal, Daisy Alpert Florin's My Last Innocent Year is a timely and wise portrait of a young woman learning to trust her voice and move toward independence while recognizing the beauty and grit of where she came from.]]> 295 Daisy Alpert Florin 125085704X Jake 5 3.97 2023
author: Daisy Alpert Florin
name: Jake
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/12
date added: 2024/08/12
shelves:
review:

]]> 43800181 A laugh-out-loud first novel about one year of insanity at the Ivy-like Devon University, a blissful bubble of elite students and the adults at their mercy.

Eph Russell is an English professor up for tenure. He may look and sound privileged, but Eph is right out of gun-rack and red-neck rural Alabama. But Devon has become a place of warring tribes, and there are landmines waiting for Eph that he is unequipped to see. The cultural rules are changing fast.

Lulu Harris is an entitled freshman from Manhattan. Her singular ambition is to be a prominent socialite � an “It Girl.� While most would kill for a place at Devon, to her college is a dreary impediment. She is pleasantly surprised to find some people she can tolerate in the Fellingham Society, a group of self-professed campus monarchists. When things go wrong at the Fellingham, Lulu is forced to re-channel her ambition in a most unexpected way � as a militant feminist. In the process, she and Eph will find their fates at odds.

Red Wheeler is in his seventh year at Devon, and is carefully managing his credits to stay longer. As the alpha dog atop Devon’s progressive hierarchy, Red is the most “woke� guy on campus. But when his position is threatened, he must take measures.

All paths collide in a riotous climax. Campusland is a timely and gleeful skewering of the modern American campus and its tribal culture.]]> 328 Scott Johnston 1250222389 Jake 5 4.01 2019
author: Scott Johnston
name: Jake
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/17
date added: 2024/04/17
shelves:
review:

]]> 58081811 The remarkable true story of a mild-mannered French husband and wife who become the world's most revered pair of Nazi hunters.

For more than five decades, Serge and Beate Klarsfeld have devoted their lives to seeking justice for the victims and survivors of the evils wrought upon humanity by the Holocaust. Over the years, they have received numerous national awards for their lifetime of work hunting down Nazi war criminals and forcing Europe to face the horrors of its past.

For Justice: The Serge and Beate Klarsfeld Story is the tale of their relentless crusade for justice and their emergence as a voice for the voiceless.

Written in partnership with Serge and Beate Klarsfeld.]]> 207 Serge Klarsfeld 1643377507 Jake 5 4.52 2020
author: Serge Klarsfeld
name: Jake
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/22
date added: 2024/01/22
shelves:
review:

]]> 63311690
It’s 1977. Ike and Lucy, the kids of Senator Charlie and Margaret Marder, are grown up—and in trouble.

US Marine Ike has gone AWOL after a military operation gone horribly wrong. Now he's off the grid, working on the pit crew of the moody stunt master Evel Knievel and hanging in the roughest dive bar in Montana. His sister Lucy has become the star reporter of a brand-new Washington, DC tabloid breaking stories about a serial killer and falling in with the wealthy, shady British family that owns the newspaper. 

As they deal with the weirdness and menace of the time—celebrities, cults, the rise of tabloid journalism, the death of Elvis Presley, the Summer of Sam, and a time of national unease—Ike and Lucy soon realize that their worlds are not only full of compromises and bad choices, but danger. As their lives begin to spiral out of control, they also spiral towards one another. And the decisions they make could mean life and death not only for them—but also their beloved parents.]]> 336 Jake Tapper 0316424382 Jake 5 to-read 3.45 2023
author: Jake Tapper
name: Jake
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/07/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>