All posts tagged: novel

Book Review: Debut novel ‘Happiness Forever’ is set on a therapy couch

Book Review: Debut novel ‘Happiness Forever’ is set on a therapy couch

May 13, 2025 10:14 PM IST Book Review: Debut novel ‘Happiness Forever’ is set on a therapy couch Do we get to choose who we love? For Sylvie, the protagonist of Adelaide Faith’s “Happiness Forever,” the answer is surely an emphatic “No.” That’s because Sylvie is in love with her therapist, an older woman with peach-colored hair who lives within walking distance of Sylvie’s home. After 13 sessions, Sylvie spends her weeks counting down the hours until she and her therapist meet again. She can’t decide whether she wants the therapist to adopt her or simply hold her hand. Book Review: Debut novel ‘Happiness Forever’ is set on a therapy couch The question of what to do about this inconvenient obsession carries through Faith’s endearing debut novel. Sylvie knows she must respect the boundaries of the therapy room, but feeds her obsession in other ways — adopting her therapist’s style of dress; studying therapy on her work breaks at the vet clinic; staying alert for a chance encounter in the neighborhood dog park. If the …

Book Review: A grandfather’s 1,500-page family history undergirds Claire Messud’s latest novel

Secrets and shame — every family has its share. When it came time to write her most autobiographical novel, Claire Messud relied on a 1,500-page family history compiled by her paternal grandfather. The result, “This Strange Eventful History,” sprawls over a third as many pages — 423, to be exact — to tell the story of three generations of a French Algerian family displaced from their colonial homeland, who never quite found another place where they felt so completely at home. HT Image The story is told from the point of view of the fiercely French, devoutly Catholic, patriarch Gaston; his rootless, cosmopolitan son, Francois; and his fearful, deluded, psychologically damaged daughter, Denise. Rounding out the chorus are Barbara, the beautiful, Protestant, Canadian-born wife of Francois, torn between roles as wife, mother and daughter as she struggles to earn a law degree at the peak of 1970s-era “women’s lib” while raising their two daughters and whipping up Julia Child recipes for dinner parties; and finally, Gaston’s granddaughter Chloe, a stand-in for the author, inheritor of …

Shakespeare gets a red flag in Florida schools amid concerns over sexual content. All you need to know

Florida schools are facing concerns over sexual content in their educational materials, leading some districts to remove works by William Shakespeare from their curriculum. Following the adoption of the Benchmarks for Excellent Student Thinking standards in 2020, Florida’s Department of Education distributed recommended reading lists that included renowned literary works. The list said “top of the line literary works with world renowned titles.” Among the authors on the high school list was William Shakespeare. However, three years later, several Florida school districts are avoiding Shakespeare’s works and other classics due to new state laws restricting materials with sexual content. Hillsborough County is the latest district to make this move, instructing teachers to assign excerpts from plays like “Romeo and Juliet” instead of the full text, Tampa Bay Times reported. Also read: A few good actions may actually be enough to improve education Joseph Cool, a teacher at Gaither High School, criticised the move, stating, “Taking Shakespeare in its entirety out because the relationship between Romeo and Juliet is somehow exploiting minors is just absurd.” She …