What if the worst mistake you ever made is the only thing anyone remembered about you?
Aviva Grossman never planned to have an affair with a married congressman. She certainly never planned to become the center of the scandal that might end his political career and definitely stops hers before it has a chance to start.
But a scandal doesn’t happen to just one person, or even two. It has a much wider orbit drawing others into the fallout.
Rachel Grossman doesn’t know what her daughter did or didn’t do. But she does know that Aviva’s heart is in the right place. She knows she wants to protect her daughter even if she has no idea how to do that when Aviva’s private life becomes front page news.
Jane Young always thought she could keep her head down, focus on raising her daughter Ruby, and everything would work out. She’s wrong, it turns out, and soon finds herself drawn into the Maine political scene as she runs for local office.
Ruby knows her mother is hiding something and she knows being thirteen isn’t as easy as her mom thinks. But she doesn’t know what to do about either of those things and hopes her online pen pal Fatima might be able to help.
Then there’s Embeth Levin. Embeth has built her life on being a congressman’s wife and cleaning up his messes. But who will be there to clean her up when things start to spin out?
Five women, lots of secrets, one scandal, and one way to move forward in Young Jane Young (2017) by Gabrielle Zevin.
Young Jane Young is a story told in five parts–each focusing on one of the women above. Zevin plays with different narrative forms and styles to tease out a complicated story about feminism, identity, reputation and the dangerous moments when all three intersect.
The less you know about this story going in, the better. Part of the magic is the way in which Zevin weaves these five seemingly disconnected narratives together into one cohesive and powerful story about all the ways to be a woman when it feels like the entire world has an opinion on who you’re supposed to be.
Young Jane Young is as smart, funny, and incisive as the woman at the center of its story. Highly recommended.
Possible Pairings: The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo, Finding Yvonne by Brandy Colbert, Unclaimed Baggage by Jen Doll, Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu, A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza, The Nowhere Girls by Amy Reed, Where’d You Go Bernadette by Maria Semple
*An advance copy of this title was provided by the publisher for review consideration at BookExpo 2017*
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