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A Novel
by Jessica Berger Gross
When a tight-knit family moves from Brooklyn to Maine, their lives are upended by an event that will alter their new community forever in this bighearted, sparkling debut for fans of Now Is Not the Time to Panic, Pineapple Street, and Schitt's Creek.
Hazel Blum, please report to the principal's office. Hazel Blum.
When Hazel Blum's father gets a tenured job at a prestigious college, she and her family relocate from the hustle and bustle of Brooklyn to a middle-of-nowhere college town in Maine. With her mother, Claire, a clothing designer, and her father, Gus, an American Studies professor, Hazel and her eleven-year-old brother, Wolf, spend the summer at the town pool, where they acclimate to their new lives and connect with the town's sprawling community. That is, until a dramatic fallout on the very first day of her senior year tips the fickle balance of idyllic Riverburg and impacts everyone in her family.
Tracking through the perspectives of each member of the Blum family, this relatable fish-out-of-water story handles big issues with great empathy and humor, capturing the love that unites one unforgettable family and the essence of life in small-town Maine. Emotionally deft, authentic, and compulsively readable, Hazel Says No is a debut novel not to be missed.
"With humor and heart, Berger Gross introduces readers to Hazel Greenberg Blum and her family…and readers will root for all of them." —Booklist (starred review)
"Embraces the joy and light that can be found in moments both big and small." —Kirkus Reviews
"Hazel Says No pulled me in from the first witty page, and I invented an imaginary book group to read along with me and discuss all the issues raised and choices made by the Blum family and other characters in a well-drawn small town in Maine. Will Hazel's actions pull the family together or break them apart? This twisty story kept me guessing until the end. I am astonished that this is Jessica Berger Gross's first novel—it's great, skillful, and funny. Fans of Catherine Newman will love it!" —Alice Elliott Dark, national bestselling author of Fellowship Point
"Hazel Says No is a smart, fun and thoroughly engaging novel about a family's move to a small town in Maine, where they are pulled apart then brought back together. The setting is vivid and colorful, the themes are timely and thought-provoking and the characters are all brimming with life." —Tova Mirvis, national bestselling author of The Ladies Auxiliary and We Would Never
This information about Hazel Says No 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.
Jessica Berger Gross is the author of the memoir Estranged: Leaving Family and Finding Home. Her essays have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, The Cut, Longreads, and many other publications. She lives in Maine with her husband and teenage son. Hazel Says No is her first novel.
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