Title: Willa and Hesper

Author: Amy Feltman   

Genre: Contemporary Fiction     

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing     

Format: Hardcover

Pages: 304

Rating: 4/5 stars

Synopsis (Goodreads):

For fans of What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell and The Futures by Anna Pitonia, a soul-piercing debut that explores the ways that past and present intertwine, queerness, and coming of age in uncertain times.

In WILLA & HESPER, two young women fall in love. When they fall apart, they unwittingly take the same path to heal from their breakup, seeking answers in the lands of their ancestors. From Tbilisi, Georgia to the war sites of Germany, they discover what can break and what can mend when you look to the past to understand your present.

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.

Meanwhile, heartbroken Willa is 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.

Told from alternating perspectives, and ending in the shadow of Trump’s presidency, WILLA & HESPER is a deeply moving, cerebral, and timely debut.

Review:

Thank you to @grandcentralpub for sending me a copy of this book! I really enjoyed it! The book revolves around two young women who are learning to live with who they are and trying to find what makes them happy! While they have a brief fling, they go off and travel for different reasons to learn about their family and their families pasts, hoping to learn about themselves in the process!

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I really liked the writing in this book! I thought it flowed really well, and the descriptions were beautiful and really transported me into the story! The characters were written in a way that I would empathize with them, even if I hadn’t experienced what they were going through. The characters themselves were quite complex yet I understood them! I also liked that it showed how the election of Trump affected many people in different way, and poignantly explains these different reactions!

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I definitely recommend you pick this up if you’re looking for a book that is kinda coming of age, but more for young adults!

Happy reading!