#ReadWithJenna Book Club Pick as Featured on TodayA New York Times Book Review’s Group Text SelectionAn extraordinary new novel of art, love, and ambition from Lily King, the New York Times bestselling author of EuphoriaFollowing the breakout success of her critically acclaimed and award-winning novel Euphoria, Lily King returns with an unforgettable portrait of an artist as a young woman.… novel Euphoria, Lily King returns with an unforgettable portrait of an artist as a young woman.
Blindsided by her mother’s sudden death, and wrecked by a recent love affair, Casey Peabody has arrived in Massachusetts in the summer of 1997 without a plan. Her mail consists of wedding invitations and final notices from debt collectors. A former child golf prodigy, she now waits tables in Harvard Square and rents a tiny, moldy room at the side of a garage where she works on the novel she’s been writing for six years. At thirty-one, Casey is still clutching onto something nearly all her old friends have let go of: the determination to live a creative life. When she falls for two very different men at the same time, her world fractures even more. Casey’s fight to fulfill her creative ambitions and balance the conflicting demands of art and life is challenged in ways that push her to the brink.
Writers & Lovers follows Casey—a smart and achingly vulnerable protagonist—in the last days of a long youth, a time when every element of her life comes to a crisis. Written with King’s trademark humor, heart, and intelligence, Writers & Lovers is a transfixing novel that explores the terrifying and exhilarating leap between the end of one phase of life and the beginning of another.more
Writers & Lovers is a portrait of the artist as a young woman. Lily King writes masterfully about desire and loss, creativity and inspiration, and how each overlaps and influences the other. I found myself reading slowly, underlining phrases, wanting to linger in the world of this novel. Her insights about love ― how it is elusive and ineffable ― and about grief ― how it is something that you live inside ― took my breath away.
Writers & Lovers stole my heart from its first pages. I am in love with this book. In. Love. This deep dive of a novel will stay with me forever.
This book made me feel all the feels. It is not a plot-driven book; it is not particularly exciting; but it shines regardless because Lily King has somehow captured the anxiety and fear and hope that is being a woman in her late twenties/early thirties who hasn’t quite figured out what she wants. King offers touching insight into being a writer, a woman, and a human who’s afraid of the future but hopeful it’s something better.
Protagonist Casey has spent the last six years working on a novel that encapsulates the spirit of her recently deceased mother. With it finished, anxiety begins to creep in about what’s next — she’s working as a waitress, is about to be evicted, is filled with grief, isn’t in a stable relationship, and her book might not even sell.
“During the day I miss the novel. I’ve lost access to a world where my mother is a little girl reading in a window or twirling in fast circles on the street, her braids raised high off her back. Outside of that novel she is dead. There seems no end to the procession of things that make my mother feel more dead.”
Casey is straightforward in her thinking, self-aware, and an admirable character. She doesn’t have it all figured out, but her confidence in herself and her ideas leads her towards a place where she can be happy. I felt Casey’s feelings very deeply and found it easy to cry when good things finally start to come her way.
This isn’t the grand adventure of Euphoria, but it’s beautiful and contemplative and it reminded me why I love reading and writing in the first place. Writers & Lovers is one to buy and keep on the shelf — an old, bound friend that never fails to put into words that nagging feeling you just can’t quite explain.
I loved this book in a I can’t-wait-to-get-back-into-this-world / your-writing-is-mesmerizing kind of way. Disclaimer: I feel like I was set up to love this book in that it’s about a person in their early 30s living in Boston struggling to write their first novel.
It’s a simple story in terms of plot — a young writer is grieving her mother’s death, and during this time of turmoil meets two men whom she falls in love with. As their relationships build and unravel her creative process / life does so in tandem.
It was the emotional complexity of the book and the clarity of the writing that really wowed me. King is so astute and honest in her observations of people / feelings / life. I also love how unassumingly smart her writing is. She’s so good at giving you the right level of detail: the necessary ones and the charming ones that coax you into the world. Casey and her life felt incredibly authentic.
Lily King just continues to WOW me every single time!
Lily King has so much to say about the perils and pleasures of both writing and romance. I really enjoyed this novel.
What a gorgeous book. Casey is a young woman at a crossroads. Everything in her life has gone wrong—she’s in debt, she has a dead end job, she has some concerning health issues and no health insurance, and her mother has died. Plus, she’s been writing a book for six years. Oh, and she’s maybe, maybe not in love with two different men. It’s hard to encapsulate this novel, but it is one of my favorites. Her character arc is so well done, and while I definitely related to the writing angst, I really related to her evolution from young adult to full-fledged adult. Highly recommend
Anyone who has been young, female, and broke, full of longing for love and a creative life, will likely see herself in this book. Absorbing and at times sharp-edged, a raw look at what it means to move through the world as a young woman with big dreams. Every sentence feels close to the nerve endings. I read it in two sittings.
I did not have any particular interest in reading a coming-of-age story about a young woman struggling with grief who waits tables while struggling to write her novel — and yet I think this is my favorite read of the year so far. Lily King is a master, and I’m already looking forward to re-reading. Intelligent, clear-sighted, compelling.
Gorgeous!
My favourite of Lily King’s books so far. Exuberant and affirming, it’s funny and immensely clever, emotionally rare and strong. I feel bereft now I’ve finished.
I adored Lily King’s previous book, Euphoria, and I did like this one, just not as much.
Writers & Lovers is an easy read. Is it deep? No. It’s written beautifully, with intelligence and flow, but literary, as in leaving us with a ton to think about? No. Heck, the author says in a Q&A that she put the ampersand in the title because … she likes ampersands. Writers & Lovers left me feeling good, though. This book is about perseverance and diligence and hope.
The protagonist is Casey Peabody, a 30-year-old writer who has had small pieces published but can’t quite finish her novel. Impoverished, she lives in a potting shed, works double shifts at a restaurant, and has a history of failed love affairs. Suddenly, she finds herself dating two good men. Both are writers, but very different from one another.
Casey’s love life plays a major role in this book, which makes it more about lovers than about writers. Writing is incidental to the rest of the plot. Casey could be an actor, a musician, a marketing wannabe – and it would have little effect on the book’s overall arc.
That said, King’s descriptions about writing are spot-on, which is one of the reasons I gave this book 4 stars. The author knows the angst of writing, of tackling writer’s block, of waiting and praying and sweating while submitting a book to an agent. She definitely knows how to write a coherent sentence.
She also knows a lot – a lot – about working in a restaurant. Her descriptions of this are detailed. At first, I found them interesting, then clever. After a while, they became repetitive. Honestly? There was more in this book about being a server than about being a writer.
The setting is Cambridge, Massachusetts. Having lived there myself, I enjoyed the local references. Like the endless detail about restaurant serving, though, these grew tedious. Still, there’s enough else to like in this book to make it a worthwhile read.
And the happy ending? What can I say? I’m a sucker for those.
When was the last time you came to the end of a book and found tears forming at the corners of your eyes and wished you could start reading it all over again? The “plot” of this novel is thin – we meet a young woman writer, Casey, whose working a dead-end restaurant job, whose deeply in debt, who is very close to being evicted, who is finishing a novel she’s been working on for six years, who is torn between two men, both or neither of which may be right for her and is mourning the death of her beloved mother a year before. And yet by the time I got to the end, Casey was someone I wanted to keep close, to read more about her, to watch the rest of her life unfold. The last time I had a similar feeling about a fictional character was Olive Ketteridge. I can’t recommend this book highly enough. It is a gem. Lily King is my new hero. I liked and admired Euphoria. But I LOVED Writers & Lovers.
I have to admit this book snuck up on me, the wounded protagonist, her situation, and the other characters in her life growing in power until I just had to know how she was doing, what was going on now and would her problems ever resolve.
So stylistically the writing reminded me of Delia Owens – writing in different time periods, of course, I really mean just the narrative style. It’s the beautiful prose that links the two, each taking the time to really surround you with the colours, textures and emotions that create an all encompassing sense of place. Lily King is writing in 1997 – can’t call it historical – but still a different set of cultural rules. The setting is Massachusetts, somewhere I absolutely love, so this book could have been made for me. It’s general fiction, commercial literary for me. Deals with the minutiae of a woman’s life, the career she’s desperate to pursue, and the two lovers who beguile her in different ways. This is a great book that takes it action from within, and that really explores sense of self. Clever, subtle, endearing and haunting, read it when you can truly appreciate its beauty.
The main character, Casey, is dealing with the sudden loss of her mother and her own unfulfilled dream of becoming a published author. It’s poignant, written in a spare prose that’s more impactful than a load of well-placed adjectives.
The dry wit and wry observations had me laughing out loud as she navigates the lot life has thrown her. It is a book that will stay with you.
I loved it!!
I wasn’t sure I could relate to a 31-year-old living in Massachusetts who is taking six years to write a book and is waiting tables, as I am a high school teacher of 30 years who is divorced and raised two kids. But of course, that’s what a great author can do. After a lot of characters at work and elsewhere or thrown our way, the story picks up and developing sympathy for our protagonist speeds up as well. My book club is in three days, and I know we will have a lot to talk about. Casey’s potential dislike of men, mental illness, disappointing parents are just a few topics I want us to explore.
Since her book “Euphoria”, Lily King is on my list of authors who leave me spellbound. Her writing is sublime and I loved the characters in “Writers and Lovers”. I`m almost sad that I have finished the book and that I have to start looking for something equally mesmerizing. Which won`t be easy.
Beautifully written, heartfelt story about life as a writer.
Casey wrote a book & is struggling to get it published. Meanwhile she is dealing with the death of her mother and a love interest breakup, among other issues, like paying her bills & keeping her job. She meets a couple of men & she likes each one, but has a tough time deciding which one she wants to continue to date. I very much enjoyed reading this book.