Are they misfits, or is the rest of the world just out of tune? I'd say the latter. Ronan Hession explores the brotherhood of close friendship in Leonard and Hungry Paul (Melville House), a funny, touching novel about two gentle men in their 30s living deceptively 'ordinary' lives ('Their conversations combined the yin of Leonard's love of facts with the yang of Hungry Paul's chaotic curiosity'). In alternating voices, the brothers' unravel their shared past (Branko: 'Then again, my brother's need to be someone else never goes away. He wants to write about this, and reaches out to his brother Branko for help ('I need to remember things as they actually were.'). In Ivan Vladislavić's The Distance (Archipelago), novelist Joe sorts through newspaper clippings he collected as a South African boy enthralled with Muhammad Ali.

'She is both the light of my life and my damnation,' Ivan says.

The twins share an almost mythic intimacy not meant for the worlds they inhabit as their lives take them from Guadeloupe to Mali to France. Sometimes the bond is so intimate it hurts, as is often the case for the title characters in The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and Ivana by Maryse Condé, translated by Richard Philcox (World Editions). As she grapples with not only grief but also her gender fluidity, Clare wonders where she’ll belong if she sheds her carefully constructed image and embraces her true self.The intricacies of connection, and disconnection, between siblings have been on my reading mind lately. but she’ll need to convince her parents, and her therapist, first.Ĭlare knows her sister thinks she’s the perfect twin, but Audrey doesn’t realize that Clare’s “popular” status is crumbling-she’s begun to question old friendships, dress in Adam’s clothes, and wonder what feelings for a nonbinary classmate, Taylor, might mean.

Tired of being seen as different from her neurotypical peers, Audrey’s determined to switch to the public high school, rebuild her friendship with Clare, and atone for Adam’s death. Now, Audrey’s attending an alternative school where she feels more isolated than ever. But as they got older, they grew apart, and when their brother Adam died, Clare blamed Audrey for the accident.

This heartfelt novel for fans of Jandy Nelson and Adam Silvera follows twins Audrey and Clare as they grapple with their brother's death and their changing relationships-with each other and themselves.Īudrey’s best friend was always her twin, Clare.

Under shifting stars by alexandra latos