Life Would Be Perfect if I Lived in That House
by Meghan Daum
The Week
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Every Last One
by Anna Quindlen
(Random House, $26)
Anna Quindlen’s latest best-seller portrays scenes of “excruciating grief,” but the novelist remains especially good at making ordinary life seem fascinating, said Carol Memmott in USA Today. For half of this novel, the Lathams are a typical two-career family dealing with teenager problems. Then a “heinous act of violence” rips their world apart. Quindlen’s quiet, subtle work in the early chapters makes each member of the family so real that the anguish of the survivors will be yours too.
The Other Wes Moore
by Wes Moore
(Spiegel & Grau, $25)
The author of this unusual personal history is one of two Wes Moores from the same impoverished Baltimore neighborhood, said Frances Romero in Time. He became a Rhodes scholar and an investment banker; the other Wes Moore, a near contemporary, is currently in prison for killing a police officer. The successful Moore “knows it took many helping hands” to steer him right, and shows that here. But though he initiates a dialogue with his troubled namesake, he “finds no clear answer” as to why some men go wrong.
The Heart of the Matter
by Emily Giffin
(St. Martin’s, $27)
Emily Giffin writes popular novels that “rise substantially above the usual chick-lit conventions,” said Melinda Bargreen in The Seattle Times. Her latest puts two women on a collision course: Valerie, an attractive single mother whose son needs a surgeon, and Tessa, the surgeon’s over-busy wife. Giffin is best at “probing the psychological underpinnings of love and relationships.” When conflict inevitably arises here, “there are no easy answers” as to who is at fault.