BOOKS
Continued from Page 19
some of the big questions in life: how do we cope with grief?
How does living change when we realize we’re not invincible?
Does knowing our likely fate make it harder or easier to face the
future? How do you motivate yourself to go on your OkCupid
date when you’re struggling with your own mortality? Written
in her inimitable, wry and insightful voice, Edelstein’s memoir is
by turns heartbreaking, hopeful and yet also disarmingly funny.

This Really Isn’t About You is a book about finding your way in
life. Which is to say, it’s a book about discovering you are not
really in control of that at all.”
7. The Magnificent Esme Wells
by Adrienne Sharp
Want to go to Las Vegas this summer
but maybe it’s not in the cards? (Get
it? Because gambling? Sorry.) Read this
coming-of-age story instead, narrated
by the 20-year-old Esme that moves
between pre-WWII Hollywood and
post-war Vegas.

“Esme Silver has always taken care of
her charming ne’er-do-well father, Ike
Silver, a small-time crook with dreams of
making it big with Bugsy Siegel. Devoted
to her daddy, Esme is often his ‘date’ at the racetrack, where she
amiably fetches the hot dogs while keeping an eye to the ground
for any cast-off tickets that may be winners. In awe of her moth-
er, Dina Wells, Esme is more than happy to be the foil who gets
the beautiful Dina into meetings and screen tests with some of
Hollywood’s greats. When Ike gets an opportunity to move to
Vegas — and, in what could at last be his big break, to help the
man she knows as ‘Benny’ open the Flamingo Hotel — life takes
an unexpected turn for Esme. A stunner like her mother, the
young girl catches the attention of Nate Stein, one of the Strip’s
most powerful men.”
8. The Female Persuasion
by Meg Wolitzer
This one has been on my list since it came
out in April. The Interestings author takes a
look at love, desire, womanhood and ambi-
tion in this story People called “Equal parts
cotton candy and red meat, in the best way.”
“Greer Kadetsky is a shy college fresh-
man when she meets the woman she hopes
will change her life. Faith Frank, dazzlingly
persuasive and elegant at 63, has been a
central pillar of the women’s movement
for decades, a figure who inspires others
to influence the world. Upon hearing Faith speak for the first time,
Greer — madly in love with her boyfriend, Cory, but still full of
longing for an ambition that she can’t quite place — feels her inner
world light up. And then, astonishingly, Faith invites Greer to make
something out of that sense of purpose, leading Greer down the most
exciting path of her life as it winds toward and away from her meant-
to-be love story with Cory and the future she’d always imagined.” l
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