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Told with warmth and intelligence, Piece of Mind introduces one of the most endearing and heroic characters in contemporary fiction.
At twenty-seven, Lucy knows everything about coffee, comic books, and Gus (the polar bear at the Central Park Zoo), and she possesses a rare gift for drawing. But since she suffered a traumatic brain injury at the age of three, she has had trouble relating to most people. She's also uncommonly messy, woefully disorganized, and incapable of holding down a regular job. When unexpected circumstances force her out of the comfortable and protective Jewish home where she was raised and into a cramped studio apartment in New York City with her college-age younger brother, she must adapt to an entirely different life - one with no safety net. Over the course of a challenging summer, Lucy is forced to discover that she has more strengths than she herself knew.
"Starred Review. Adelman's debut novel is a moving story of grief, resilience, and self-actualization... Adelma fully inhabits Lucy's voice, and the resulting tale is as realistic as it is uplifting." - Publishers Weekly
"Lovely sketches are interspersed with the text, and the heavier tones of Adelman's tale are balanced by Lucy's unique voice, offering a candid exploration of self-doubt, the bonds of family, and the fear of the unknown." - Booklist
"This labor of love pens a soft-edged portrait of a subject who struggles to grasp complexity." - Kirkus
This information about Piece of Mind was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Michelle Adelman received her MFA in writing from Columbia University and her MS and BS in journalism from Northwestern University. She lives in the Bay Area.
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