Why read The Fall of Lisa Bellow?

Book cover of The Fall of Lisa Bellow

Book description

The breakout novel from the critically acclaimed author of the short story collections Who I Was Supposed to Be and Why They Run the Way They Do—when a middle school girl is abducted in broad daylight, a fellow student and witness to the crime copes with the tragedy in unforgettable…

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Literary fiction

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Fall of Lisa Bellow as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Neil Connelly

Author

I love this book because it made me think about myself as a parent. The premise here is crazy simple—a gunman seems about to kill two girls but takes one, leaving the other. I felt horrible for Meredith, crushed by survivor’s guilt, but my real sympathies fell to her mom, Claire.

At that point in my life, my sons were adolescents, and I was viewing their healthy independence as something I was losing. I was totally taken by the heart-rich, wise exploration of what we do when someone we love goes somewhere we can’t follow.

From Neil's list on families on the brink, or over the edge.