AMANDA | Writer, et cetera.

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Books for Growns

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The Long Haul by Amanda Stern

THE long haul summary:

Amanda Stern’s debut novel, is about a mismatched, codependent young couple forced to come to terms with their static relationship as they traverse the frozen landscape between upstate New York and Manhattan. An ice storm, a kidnapping, and a break-in play key roles in their increasingly surreal voyage toward self-discovery and sacrifice. This haunting novel draws comparisons to Buffalo 66 and Jesus’ Son.

Maggie Estep
Maggie Estep
Amanda Stern's prose is spare and gorgeous. This tough little book is like an elegantly clad punch in the guts. -- Maggie Estep
Joanna Scott
Joanna Scott
[Stern] puts the right words in the right place to create a novel that is startling, wrenching, beautiful...powerfully resonant. -- Joanna Scott, author of Tourmaline
Hal Hartley
Hal Hartley
[Stern] has rendered a powerful impression of...regret, rage, and occasional bliss with an exactitude that is...funny, and endearing. -- Hal Hartley
Victor LaValle
Victor LaValle
The Long Haul is a harrowing novel about the selfish parts of love....she renders...heartbreak with ease and grace. -- Victor LaValle
Publishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly
Stern's tone is a spot-on mix of nostalgia, sympathy and ennui. [The Long Haul is a] sharp, dark coming-of-age story. -- Publishers Weekly, October 20, 2003
The San Francisco Chronicle
The San Francisco Chronicle
"Her metaphors are so fresh, they're almost jarring...her willingness to experiment is a lesson for novelists and readers both." -- San Francisco Chronicle Book Review, October 12, 2003
UNCUT Magazine
UNCUT Magazine
Reading Stern is like watching polaroids materialise, the horror creeping up on you. Picture perfect writing; a compelling story.... -- UNCUT Magazine, November 2003

Little Panic Summary:

In the vein of bestselling memoirs about mental illness like Andrew Solomon’s Noonday Demon, Sarah Hepola’s Blackout, and Daniel Smith’s Monkey Mind comes a gorgeously immersive, immediately relatable, and brilliantly funny memoir about living life on the razor’s edge of panic. * [Starred] Review in Publisher’s Weekly | Barnes & Noble Discover New Writers Pick

Sarah Manguso
Sarah Manguso
"Little Panic is an intimate and sweeping story of hyper-vigilance. Cheeky and vivid and transporting, it's also extremely funny. Stern's book conveys just how isolating mental illness really is, how it creates almost a second existence for those who suffer it. As I read it I had the sense of someone living underwater, watching the world going on effortlessly above. I was swept up. I spend my life hoping to find books like this."—Sarah Manguso, author of 300 Arguments: Essays
Alexandra Kleeman
Alexandra Kleeman
"With courage and a keen sense of humor, Little Panic delves beneath the surface of the terms, tests, and judgements we apply to our mental existence in order to recover the experiential richness buried beneath. Readers will recognize themselves in Stern's psychological coming-of-age, keenly empathetic and vibrantly felt."—Alexandra Kleeman, author of You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine
Meg Wolitzer
Meg Wolitzer
"Amanda Stern has written an affecting, emotionally vivid memoir that really succeeds in giving the reader the sense of what it might be like to be another person, with all the experiences and sensations-including the most difficult ones-that that entails. Her book is reflective, authentic, alive."—Meg Wolitzer, New York Times bestselling author of The Female Persuasion
Andrew Solomon
Andrew Solomon
"In this canny, insightful, novelistic memoir, Amanda Stern traces the indelible path her underlying anxiety has traced in a rich but often frustrated life. It's a book about her emergence into and acceptance of mature identity, but it is also about the danger of love, the maze of social pressure, and the tension between childhood expectations and adult realities. Narrating with real poignance how every experience she's had has been filtered through her psychic vulnerability, she achieves a symphony of complex fragilities and redeeming strengths."—Andrew Solomon, National Book Award-winning author of Far From the Tree
A.M. Homes
A.M. Homes
"Brave, in the truest sense of the word, Amanda Stern's Little Panic is a document of survival of the fittest. This is the book for anyone-who has dropped a beat, a week or a year, feeling afraid not just of the dark, but of life, of being left alone in this world. A haunting story of the impact of time and place-the backdrop of Etan Patz's vanishing, New York in the 1970s-split between parents and worlds, struggling to find a place of her own. Little Panic is a stunning reminder of what it is to be human."—A. M. Homes, bestselling author of The Mistress's Daughter and Days of Awe
Darin Strauss
Darin Strauss
"Amanda Stern sees childhood with perfect clarity, and she sees how we, as adults, are still living in childhood. Little Panic will make you feel alot. Without a doubt, it is a masterpiece."—Darin Strauss, author of Half a Life
O Magazine
O Magazine
"Stern's frank, funny memoir about living with anxiety...will have chronic worrywarts laugh-crying with recognition."—O, The Oprah Magazine
People Magazine
People Magazine
"Brave, fiercely funny...a brilliant read that offers hope for anyone burdened by anxiety. "—People Magazine
Publishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly
Honest and deeply felt, Stern’s story delivers a raw window into the terrifying world of panic disorders (Starred Review)

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