Borders Book Group
Modern Women's Fiction
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We Need to Talk About KevinTwo years ago, Eva Khatchadourian’s son, Kevin, murdered seven of his fellow high-school students, a cafeteria worker, and a popular algebra teacher. Because he was only fifteen at the time of the killings, he received a lenient sentence and is now in a prison for young offenders in upstate New York. Telling the story of Kevin's upbringing, Eva addresses herself to her estranged husband through a series of letters. Fearing that her own shortcomings may have shaped what her son has become, she confesses to a deep, long-standing ambivalence about both motherhood in general and Kevin in particular. How much is her fault? Lionel Shriver tells a compelling, absorbing, and resonant story while framing these horrifying tableaux of teenage carnage as metaphors for the larger tragedy - the tragedy of a country where everything works, nobody starves, and anything can be bought but a sense of purpose.
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Personal Read
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The Time Traveler's WifeThis extraordinary, magical novel is the story of Clare and Henry who have known each other since Clare was six and Henry was thirty-six, and were married when Clare was twenty-two and Henry thirty. Impossible but true, because Henry is one of the first people diagnosed with Chrono-Displacement Disorder: periodically his genetic clock resets and he finds himself pulled suddenly into his past or future. His disappearances are spontaneous and his experiences are alternately harrowing and amusing. The Time Traveler's Wife depicts the effects of time travel on Henry and Clare's passionate love for each other with grace and humour. Their struggle to lead normal lives in the face of a force they can neither prevent nor control is intensely moving and entirely unforgettable.
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Personal Read
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The Tenderness of WolvesAs winter tightens its grip on the isolated settlement of Dove River, a man is brutally murdered and a seventeen-year-old boy disappears. Tracks leaving the dead man's cabin head north towards the forest and the tundra beyond.
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Personal Read
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The ObservationsScotland, 1863. In an attempt to escape her past, Bessy Buckley takes a job working as a maid in a big country house. But when Arabella, her beautiful mistress, asks her to undertake a series of bizarre tasks, Bessy begins to realise that she hasn't quite landed on her feet. In one of the most acclaimed debuts of recent years, Jane Harris has created a heroine who will make you laugh and cry as she narrates this unforgettable story about secrets and suspicions and the redemptive power of love and friendship.
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Personal Read
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The Kite RunnerWinter, 1975: Afghanistan — a country hidden in the corner of Asia, ruled over by a fading monarchy on the verge of an internal coup. But in Kabul, twelve-year-old Amir has his own concerns. He is desperate to win the annual kite-fighting tournament to prove to his father that he has the makings of a man. Amir’s friend Hassan is a low-caste Muslim and the son of a crippled servant but nevertheless the two boys play together and defend each other against the neighbourhood’s bullies. However, during the tournament, Amir takes advantage of Hassan’s guileless devotion and commits a terrible act of betrayal which is to shatter their lives and define their future. Amir finds that he can never escape the far-reaching consequences of his actions. Unfolding against Afghanistan’s destructive history, from the fall of the monarchy to the terrifying oppression of the Taliban, The Kite Runner is the breathtaking story of fathers and sons, friendship and redemption, and, most horrifyingly, the casualties of fate.
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Personal Read
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