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Dark, raw, and very funny, Problems introduces us to Maya, a young woman with a smart mouth, time to kill, and a heroin hobby that isn't much fun anymore.
Maya's been able to get by in New York on her wits and a dead-end bookstore job for years, but when her husband leaves her and her favorite professor ends their affair, her barely-calibrated life descends into chaos, and she has to make some choices. Maya's struggle to be alone, to be a woman, and to be thoughtful and imperfect and alive in a world that doesn't really care what happens to her is rendered with dead-eyed clarity and unnerving charm. This book takes every tired trope about addiction and recovery, "likeable" characters, and redemption narratives, and blows them to pieces.
"Starred and Boxed Review. Sharma's debut novel is an uncompromising and unforgettable depiction of the corrosive loop of addiction... in Maya's voice, Sharma has crafted a momentous force that never flags and feels painfully honest." - Publishers Weekly
"An absorbing novel carried by a seemingly hopeless protagonist you will want to befriend and save." - Kirkus
"This isn't the first book that covers the unglamorous side of addiction and it won't be the last, but Sharma gives us Maya, a fresh voice." - NewPages
This information about Problems 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.
Jade Sharma is a writer living in New York. She has an MFA from The New School.
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In youth we run into difficulties. In old age difficulties run into us
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