Young Jane Young
Gabrielle Zevin
294 pages
Fiction
Young and naïve college student Aviva Grossman makes the biggest mistake of her life when she has an affair with a married congressman. After the affair comes to light, Aviva’s once promising career in politics is over. She just wants to put the whole mess behind her but no one will hire her. Aviva takes drastic measures: changing her name, leaving her family and moving thousands of miles away. Years later Jane Young is living a quiet life as an event planner when she decides to run for mayor. But even local politics can get ugly. Will her past be revealed?
This book was highly enjoyable and an easy read. It was funny but also carried a powerful message. I appreciated that the author did not favor one perspective.
The story was told not only from Aviva’s point of view but also from several people that her decisions affected. Living in a world where everything can easily be Googled and the past is never really forgotten can make starting over extremely difficult. Allowing for a little more grace might just make the process a bit smoother.
Elizabeth GottheimerConcord Public Library
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