Genre - Literary Fiction Romance
Best Book of July 2020
This well-drawn domestic drama explores with verve and an almost scientific rigor how friendships form, especially across generational and socio-economic lines. Elisabeth, an accomplished author, slips into suburban malaise after having a baby and moving from New York City to Philadelphia where she hires Sam, a self-possessed college senior, to babysit. Their relationship quickly gets complicated as Sam makes her way into Elisabeth’s world. The author charts with uncommon grace how we ‘pick’ people, that alchemical interplay of surprise and familiarity, esteem and envy, that makes us curious to know more. As the book cups hands around those first embers of connection, it’s hypnotic to watch the spark float into the open waters of real friendship where characters are as likely to be capsized by good intentions as unexpected consequences. —Katy Ball
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Review
A #ReadWithJenna TODAY Show Book Club Pick
A Washington Post "Book to Read this Summer"
A Real Simple "Best Book of 2020"
An Entertainment Weekly "Book to Read this June"
A Parade "Best Book of the Summer"
A theSkimm "Hottest Book of the Summer"
A Vogue "Book to Read this June"
A People magazine "Best Book to Read this Summer"
A Good Housekeeping "Best Beach Read"
A Marie Claire "Best New Book to Read this Summer"
A Bustle "Most Anticipated Book of 2020"
A SheReads "Most Anticipated Book of 2020"
A RealSimple "Top Pick for Summer"
A Travel and Leisure "Most Anticipated Book of the Summer"
A Parade "Best Beach Read of 2020"
A Good Morning America "Book to Read This Summer"
A Town and Country "Must-Read Book of the Summer"
A New York Times "Book to Watch For"
A CNN "Perfect Summer Read'
"J. Courtney Sullivan’s fifth novel, which examines the intricate relationship between a babysitter and her employer, begins in the middle of the night, in the middle of the suburbs — 'Nobody up at this hour besides mothers and insomniacs' — from which promising vantage point we’re given delightful permission to sit back and spy... Drawn by Sullivan’s deft hand, the relationship feels authentic and richly textured... Friends and Strangers is a big novel with big ideas... An honest rendering of what happens behind closed doors."
—Clare Lombardo, New York Times Book Review
"There’s a rare degree of emotional maturity in Friends and Strangers, a willingness to resist demonizing any of the players, a commitment to exploring the demands of family with the deliberate care such complex relations require. Once again, Sullivan has shown herself to be one of the wisest and least pretentious chroniclers of modern life. Every hard-won insight here is offered up with such casual grace."
—Ron Charles, The Washington Post
"Friends and Strangers is a compellingly readable book that feels a little bit like a beach read, but at the same time tackles themes of acceptance of others and also of yourself... The novel takes on modern issues surrounding adulthood, motherhood and class. It also offers a broader look at issues we are facing as an American society... as hilarious as it is insightful and paints an authentic picture of modern motherhood and the power of female friendship."
—Today
“What's crucial about... Friends and Strangers, though, is that they are more than "nanny novels" predicated on a Manichaean dynamic between employer and employee. They expertly lay bare the shortcomings of the employers they represent, but they allow them humanity too: These mothers are lost, isolated and often have no one else to whom they feel they can turn other than their nannies. More importantly, while these books center the young women who have been transported into unfamiliar and luxe surroundings under the auspices of caregiving, they take care to define their protagonists by more than their work.”
—Vogue
"Courtney Sullivan’s new Friends and Strangers... fits neatly into my preferred category of summer reading: literate and smart, but also a heck of a lot of fun and a break for my news-addled brain... a gimlet-eyed examination of classism and privilege in America and a close look at the complicated terrain between parents and hired caregivers, with the ensuing guilt and resentments that so often accompany such relationships."
—Portland Monthly
"Extremely timely."
—New York Post
"One of summer's most delicious reads."
—Town and Country
"A hilarious and insightful novel about a complicated friendship between two very different women... When their differences are revealed, a betrayal takes place with devastating consequences."
A Washington Post "Book to Read this Summer"
A Real Simple "Best Book of 2020"
An Entertainment Weekly "Book to Read this June"
A Parade "Best Book of the Summer"
A theSkimm "Hottest Book of the Summer"
A Vogue "Book to Read this June"
A People magazine "Best Book to Read this Summer"
A Good Housekeeping "Best Beach Read"
A Marie Claire "Best New Book to Read this Summer"
A Bustle "Most Anticipated Book of 2020"
A SheReads "Most Anticipated Book of 2020"
A RealSimple "Top Pick for Summer"
A Travel and Leisure "Most Anticipated Book of the Summer"
A Parade "Best Beach Read of 2020"
A Good Morning America "Book to Read This Summer"
A Town and Country "Must-Read Book of the Summer"
A New York Times "Book to Watch For"
A CNN "Perfect Summer Read'
"J. Courtney Sullivan’s fifth novel, which examines the intricate relationship between a babysitter and her employer, begins in the middle of the night, in the middle of the suburbs — 'Nobody up at this hour besides mothers and insomniacs' — from which promising vantage point we’re given delightful permission to sit back and spy... Drawn by Sullivan’s deft hand, the relationship feels authentic and richly textured... Friends and Strangers is a big novel with big ideas... An honest rendering of what happens behind closed doors."
—Clare Lombardo, New York Times Book Review
"There’s a rare degree of emotional maturity in Friends and Strangers, a willingness to resist demonizing any of the players, a commitment to exploring the demands of family with the deliberate care such complex relations require. Once again, Sullivan has shown herself to be one of the wisest and least pretentious chroniclers of modern life. Every hard-won insight here is offered up with such casual grace."
—Ron Charles, The Washington Post
"Friends and Strangers is a compellingly readable book that feels a little bit like a beach read, but at the same time tackles themes of acceptance of others and also of yourself... The novel takes on modern issues surrounding adulthood, motherhood and class. It also offers a broader look at issues we are facing as an American society... as hilarious as it is insightful and paints an authentic picture of modern motherhood and the power of female friendship."
—Today
“What's crucial about... Friends and Strangers, though, is that they are more than "nanny novels" predicated on a Manichaean dynamic between employer and employee. They expertly lay bare the shortcomings of the employers they represent, but they allow them humanity too: These mothers are lost, isolated and often have no one else to whom they feel they can turn other than their nannies. More importantly, while these books center the young women who have been transported into unfamiliar and luxe surroundings under the auspices of caregiving, they take care to define their protagonists by more than their work.”
—Vogue
"Courtney Sullivan’s new Friends and Strangers... fits neatly into my preferred category of summer reading: literate and smart, but also a heck of a lot of fun and a break for my news-addled brain... a gimlet-eyed examination of classism and privilege in America and a close look at the complicated terrain between parents and hired caregivers, with the ensuing guilt and resentments that so often accompany such relationships."
—Portland Monthly
"Extremely timely."
—New York Post
"One of summer's most delicious reads."
—Town and Country
"A hilarious and insightful novel about a complicated friendship between two very different women... When their differences are revealed, a betrayal takes place with devastating consequences."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
J. Courtney Sullivan is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels Commencement, Maine, The Engagements, and Saints For All Occasions. Maine was named a Best Book of the Year by Time magazine, and a Washington Post Notable Book for 2011. The Engagements was one of People Magazine’s Top Ten Books of 2013 and an Irish Times Best Book of the Year. It is soon to be a major motion picture produced by Reese Witherspoon and distributed by Fox 2000, and it will be translated into 17 languages. Her latest novel, Saints For All Occasions, was named one of the ten best books of the year by the Washington Post, a New York Times Critic’s Pick for 2017, and a New England Book Award nominee. Courtney’s writing has also appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Chicago Tribune, New York magazine, Elle, Glamour, Allure, Real Simple, and O: The Oprah Magazine, among many others. She is a co-editor, with Courtney Martin, of the essay anthology Click: When We Knew We Were Feminists. In 2017, she wrote the forewords to new editions of two of her favorite classic novels—Anne of Green Gables and Little Women. A Massachusetts native, Courtney now lives in New York with her husband and two children.
—SheReads
Novels also written by J. Courtney Sullivan:
Commencement (2009)
Maine (2011)
The Engagements (2013)
Saints for All Occasions (2017)
Friends and Strangers (2020)
Maine (2011)
The Engagements (2013)
Saints for All Occasions (2017)
Friends and Strangers (2020)
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