{"product_id":"like-normal-people-isbn-9780618126927","title":"Like Normal People","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\"\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBender has crafted a luminous, meditative novel on the boundaries between childhood, adulthood, and old age.\" -\u003cem\u003eEntertainment Weekly\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA tour de force of literary craft and emotional resonance, \u003cem\u003eLike Normal People\u003c\/em\u003e charts a family constellation that revolves around an off-kilter center: Lena, who is forty-eight but mentally locked in childhood. Moving deftly between present and past, the novel follows Lena's day-long escape from her residential home with her troubled twelve-year-old niece. While this odd couple takes refuge on a honky-tonk southern California beach, Lena’s widowed mother, Ella, goes in search of them. In the process, Ella relives her own life's dreams and disappointments: her marriage to a sweet, loving shoe salesman; her discovery of Lena's handicap and her aching attempts to give her daughter a \"normal\" childhood. For so long, Lena has been the focus of Ella's world. When Lena at last finds approximate normalcy -- by marrying a man much like herself -- Ella must contend with letting her daughter go.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCovering three entire lifetimes in the course of one day, \u003cem\u003eLike Normal People \u003c\/em\u003eis tender, often hilarious, and deeply moving. Bender brilliantly enters into the consciousness of three women at very different stages of life, each on a private search for love and acceptance. \u003cem\u003eLike Normal People\u003c\/em\u003e is a novel about desire, about what constitutes normality, and, most poignantly, about the ways in which a family finds its strength in the face of adversity.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eKaren Bender's powerfully affecting first novel has garnered remarkable early attention. Portions of the novel have been published in \u003cem\u003eThe New Yorker, Granta\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eStory \u003c\/em\u003emagazine. An excerpt chosen for \u003cem\u003eThe Best American Short Stories\u003c\/em\u003e by Annie Proulx was recorded by Joanne Woodward and aired on NPR's Selected Shorts.\u003c\/p\u003e | \u003cp\u003eFor a debut novel, there is much to praise: the characters who breathe  life into the pages, warm settings, the nostalgia of growing up.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBoston Globe\u003cbr\u003eLIKE NORMAL PEOPLE is an uplifting and bittersweet testament to  uncompromising love.--The New York Post\u003cbr\u003e…this first novel is rendered in delicate yet indelible  prose.--Portland Oregonian\u003cbr\u003e\"What an amazing novel; the complexities, imperfections and triumphs of Karen Bender's extraordinary characters will keep you rapt from start to finish. You'll love this book.\" -- Meg Wolitzer, author of SURRENDER, DOROTHY and FRIENDS FOR LIFE.  \u003cbr\u003e \"Like Normal People is funny and heartbreaking on every page, so smart, so beautiful, so real...it's a rare book that's this brave, and this moving.\"--Elizabeth McCracken, author of THE GIANT'S HOUSE and HERE'S YOUR HAT WHAT'S YOUR HURRY\u003cbr\u003e\"Karen Bender is already a writer of great skill and sensitivity.  The quality of this book, its true sense of humanity, reminded me of Anne Tyler, Barbara Kingsolver, the best of modern authors.\" --Joanne Woodward\u003cbr\u003eBender's is the prose of an accomplished writer with a keen eye… The Chicago Tribune\u003cbr\u003e…thanks to the marvelously feisty and funny Ella and Lena, it's a  bantamweight worth picking up this spring.\u003cp\u003eThe Wall Street Journal\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt is a remarkably complex work that attempts to explore the lives of  three different people in one day.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Baltimore Sun\u003cbr\u003e\"To all of this, Bender brings a calm and intelligent eye. If this  were a movie, there would no doubt be a lesson to learn about the  beauty of innocence, with Lena's pure soul pitted against the wider world's meanness and uniformity. Bender goes for something more  complex and far more rewarding: She shows how love and sadness can co- exist in a world where normalcy is elusive, and where strength emerges in surprising ways.\" The San Francisco Chronicle\u003cbr\u003e…Bender has crafted a luminous, meditative novel on the boundaries  between childhood, adulthood, and old age.\u003cp\u003eEntertainment Weekly\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBender deserves the recognition for her keen ability to depict the  interplay among family members, particularly between Ella and Lena.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCleveland Plain Dealer\u003cbr\u003e\"Some first novelists arrive on the scene already so proficient it's hard to believe that we are reading their debut effort. This is true of Bender, whose remarkable narrative of three generations of women has the wisdom of mature insight and the grace of empathy and understanding...Bender's subtle humor, her understanding of a parent's need to offer protective love and her tolerant view of human nature infuse the story with universality. In the end, this heartwarming novel dealing with societal misfits, family relationships and loss is all about flawed human beings, 'normal' and not.\" Publishers Weekly, Starred","brand":"Ecco","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44890181730533,"sku":"NP9780618126927","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780618126927.jpg?v=1730232707","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/like-normal-people-isbn-9780618126927","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}