Book cover of Same As It Ever Was

Book description

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NAMED A BEST BOOK BY PEOPLE AND PARADE • The New York Times bestselling author of The Most Fun We Ever Had (“wonderfully immersive…deliciously absorbing”—NPR) returns with another brilliantly observed family drama in which the enduring, hard-won affection of a long marriage faces imminent derailment from events…

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Why read it?

4 authors picked Same As It Ever Was as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Very well-executed family drama.

Out buying vegetables, Julia encounters a woman she hasn't seen for twenty years. This shakes up her world and keeps the pages turning. Running over her years getting the perfect life, the chance encounter forces her to reconsider everything and foreshadows a crashing downfall.

The writing is clear, no frills, yet gets right into the mind of a very complex protagonist.

From Ruby's list on midlife marriage meltdowns.

I was immersed in Julia's world. She is a flawed mother and wife in a long marriage, with all the ordinary issues of any long marriage. Nothing earth shattering in the plot, but I felt I lived in Julia's house, her neighborhood, I could see her kids, could feel her struggles with depression, with wanting to be a different kind of mother than the one she had. I read this as a library book, then bought it, so I could study Lombardo's careful details, the way she really puts you into the character's heads and hearts and homes. This is…

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Book cover of White Picket Fences

White Picket Fences by Kyle Ann Robertson,

Tina Edwards loved her childhood and creating fairy houses, a passion shared with her father, a world-renowned architect. But at nine years old, she found him dead at his desk and is haunted by this memory. Tina's mother abruptly moved away, leaving Tina with feelings of abandonment and suspicion.

Raised…

As I wade through middle age, I found some of the themes of this book deeply relatable. It is wonderfully written and normalizes how human and inadequate we all can feel.

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Book cover of White Picket Fences

White Picket Fences by Kyle Ann Robertson,

Tina Edwards loved her childhood and creating fairy houses, a passion shared with her father, a world-renowned architect. But at nine years old, she found him dead at his desk and is haunted by this memory. Tina's mother abruptly moved away, leaving Tina with feelings of abandonment and suspicion.

Raised…

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