Book cover of Never Coming Back

Book description

“[A] poignant meditation on the relationship between a mother and daughter” from the New York Times bestselling author of Shadow Baby (Publishers Weekly).
 
When Clara Winter left her rural Adirondack town for college, she never looked back. Her mother, Tamar, a fiercely independent but loving woman who raised Clara…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Never Coming Back as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I loved everything about this book, from the story arc to Alison McGhee's turn of phrase and use of language.

Her descriptions of people and scenes range from hilarious to tear-inducing, with a side of quirky.

The best thing, though, is the story itself, Clara going back to the place she was never going back to, and dealing not only with her mother's dementia but with the things that made her leave town in the first place.

In this story, the dog is named Dog and he died before the story begins. The blue ceramic urn with his ashes is…

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December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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