Friday, December 27, 2019

Six books to read with your teen or twentyish daughter

Kelly Simmons is a former journalist and creative advertising director who started writing fiction over fifteen years ago, while studying creative writing and screenwriting at Temple University and University of Pennsylvania. In addition to her critically acclaimed novels (Standing Still, The Bird House, One More Day, The Fifth of July and Where She Went) she has stuff on a few back burners: developing a TV series, writing a memoir, perfecting her dessert game.

She's a visiting teacher for Drexel University's Storylab and is a member of The Liars Club writing mentorship collective, The Tall Poppy Writers, Womens Fiction Writers Association, and Binders Full of Women Writers.

[see My Book, The Movie: Where She Went by Kelly Simmons]

At The Strand Magazine Simmons tagged six books to buddy-read with your teen or twentyish daughter:
Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple.

Got a booksmart cynical quipster at home? If you missed this tongue-in-cheek mystery, a wry send up of high school mom culture, read it quick before you see the movie. Or just go to the movie together, who am I to tell you what to do? I’m not your mother.
Read about the other entries on the list.

Where’d You Go, Bernadette is among Jeff Somers's top five novels whose main characters are shut-ins and five books that use cultural anthropology to brilliant effect and top five novels featuring runaway parents, Heidi Fiedler's thirty-three books to read with your mother, the Star-Tribune's eight top funny books for dire times, Chrissie Gruebel's seven great books for people who love Modern Family, Charlotte Runcie's ten best bad mothers in literature, Joel Cunningham's seven notable epistolary novels and Chrissie Gruebel's five top books for readers inspired by Nora Ephron.

--Marshal Zeringue