Download PDF Willa Hesper Audible Audio Edition Amy Feltman Dara Rosenberg Christine Lakin Hachette Audio Books
Download As PDF : Willa Hesper Audible Audio Edition Amy Feltman Dara Rosenberg Christine Lakin Hachette Audio Books
For fans of What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell and The Futures by Anna Pitoniak, a soul-piercing debut that explores the intertwining of past and present, queerness, and coming of age in uncertain times.
Willa's darkness enters Hesper's light late one night in Brooklyn. Theirs is a whirlwind romance until Willa starts to know Hesper too well, to crawl into her hidden spaces, and Hesper shuts her out. She runs, following her fractured family back to her grandfather's hometown of Tbilisi, Georgia, looking for the origin story that he is no longer able to tell. But once in Tbilisi, cracks appear in her grandfather's history - and a massive flood is heading toward Georgia, threatening any hope for repair.Â
Meanwhile, heartbroken Willa is so desperate to leave New York that she joins a group trip for Jewish twentysomethings to visit Holocaust sites in Germany and Poland, hoping to override her emotional state. When it proves to be more fraught than home, she must come to terms with her past - the ancestral past, her romantic past, and the past that can lead her forward.Â
Told from alternating perspectives, and ending in the shadow of Trump's presidency, Willa & Hesper is a deeply moving, cerebral, and timely debutÂ
Download PDF Willa Hesper Audible Audio Edition Amy Feltman Dara Rosenberg Christine Lakin Hachette Audio Books
"Let me begin with saying, this book was nothing like I expected.
In the best way possible.
It started out strangely, I wasn't entirely positive of what happened until she flat out stated it. Throughout the book, we learn more about Willa and Hesper not only in the sense of womanhood and sexuality but in that of humanity. They are more than their predestined embodiment. It's a journey of self acceptance, tied with emotional trauma, weed, politics, and religion."
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Tags : Willa Hesper (Audible Audio Edition) Amy Feltman, Dara Rosenberg, Christine Lakin, Hachette Audio Books, ,Amy Feltman, Dara Rosenberg, Christine Lakin, Hachette Audio,Willa Hesper,Hachette Audio,B07N89L15Q
Willa Hesper Audible Audio Edition Amy Feltman Dara Rosenberg Christine Lakin Hachette Audio Books Reviews :
Willa Hesper Audible Audio Edition Amy Feltman Dara Rosenberg Christine Lakin Hachette Audio Books Reviews
- A really beautiful story of love and not-love, along with the pleasures and perils of trying to connect with your ancestors. I never underline on e-books, but I changed my stance on this completely because of the prose--entire passages are worthy. Lyrical.
- “Willa & Hesper†by Amy Feltman is not so much a story about a lesbian relationship as it is about relationships in general; it is important, but not pivotal, that the protagonists are lesbian. It is also important that Willa is Jewish, and that Hesper is descended from a refugee from Europe of murky origin who arrived in the middle of the 20th Century. Connoisseurs of recent LGBTQ literature will appreciate this distinction.
As the jacket description explains, the book is told in alternating chapters voiced in the first person by each of the title characters. In the first pages a pivotal incident is described wherein Willa is assaulted (but not raped) by a “boy†(emphasizing the immaturity and uncertainty of the assailant); this incident crystallizes her determination never to be the passive recipient of unwanted attention. On the other hand, Hesper is clearly commitment-shy, being the daughter of divorced parents and the sibling of an avant garde, as well as somewhat controlling and competitive, elder sister. After a brief and intense romance, Hesper’s avoidance of a deeper relationship leads to a devastating breakup that essentially sends both women into tailspins which, likewise, are described effectively in the plot summary.
Author Feltman obviously has a masterful command of description, plot development, and characterization. The chapters representing the voices of the two main characters clearly reflect the personalities of each in terms of vocabulary and sentence structure. The women actually met in a writing workshop where the presentations of each participant were critiqued by the group, and it is clear that the “style†of each is maintained as if she is in fact writing a memoir or journal. In addition, peripheral characters, including family members and friends of Willa and Hesper, are fully fleshed and three dimensional.
Finally, I believe that the “setting†of this story in the time-frame of the 2016 Presidential Election is brilliantly handled and worked into the sociological and psychological ambience of the narrative. Although not in any way heavy-handed, against this backdrop the personal angst of each individual character is given extraordinary depth and meaning. - I was instantly intrigued by WILLA & HESPER. The synopsis, the cover, the first chapter. But I struggled with it and it wasn’t because it lacked anything of interest. It was captivating and kept me curious page after page. I just had a hard time differentiating our two main characters. Their voices were too similar, but eventually I caught on and things started to fall into place. I found myself wanting more of all the little details.
This is so much more than a love story (which was very brief by the way). I became so invested in Willa and Hesper when they started to explore their past and what drove them to discover their history and ultimately, themselves. It wasn’t until the end that I truly became a fan of these characters. Watching them evolve was the best part of the journey. I loved seeing how they acted vs where they wanted to go, who they wanted to be, and what they wanted in life. The book has so much depth. The closure to WILLA & HESPER’s story was such a lovely and bittersweet way to end. The only lingering question I had was… did Hesper actually read the email? - Willa & Hesper by Amy Feltman is that rare book, for me, that kept me invested and interested from the beginning to the end.
The story of Willa and Hesper, as well as the stories of Willa and Hesper, unfold almost casually even when they are traumatic. I found this to be very effective since trauma seems almost casual while it is happening and it is in the aftermath, whether moments, weeks, or years, when the trauma really takes on a larger than life feel. There is shock, there is anger and sadness, but more than anything there is the will to survive, to have a life worth living. We often think this life is because of what happens to us but quite often it is in spite of what happens to us. Feltman captures both senses here.
Willa and Hesper, as characters, are like most people we know. There are things to love about them, things to hate, but mostly they are good people trying their best. This makes them, even at their least likable, still empathy-inducing characters. You want them to find whatever it is they need to be happy, or at least not to be unhappy.
The lines between personal, familial, and community histories are permeable and speak to one another. Who are we? Why are we? To what extent does our ethnic/religious history make us who we are? To what extent do the different such histories we all have share, at their cores, a common sense of survival in the face of seemingly insurmountable evil? Which brings this story from the personal and historical journey into the very real world of present day evil, America in the age of Trump.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys beautiful prose, flawed but likable characters, and the intersection of personal, familial, and cultural histories with current events.
Reviewed from a copy made available through Goodreads' First Reads. - Let me begin with saying, this book was nothing like I expected.
In the best way possible.
It started out strangely, I wasn't entirely positive of what happened until she flat out stated it. Throughout the book, we learn more about Willa and Hesper not only in the sense of womanhood and sexuality but in that of humanity. They are more than their predestined embodiment. It's a journey of self acceptance, tied with emotional trauma, weed, politics, and religion.
