-
Access Our
Best Book Club
Books of 2025!
Summary | Excerpt | Reviews | Beyond the book | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio
Book Reviewed by:From the New York Times bestselling author of The Dogs of Babel, a taut, emotionally wrenching story of how a seemingly "normal" family could become desperate enough to leave everything behind and move to a "family camp" in New Hampshire - a life-changing experience that alters them forever.
How far will a mother go to save her family? The Hammond family is living in DC, where everything seems to be going just fine, until it becomes clear that the oldest daughter, Tilly, is developing abnormally - a mix of off-the-charts genius and social incompetence. Once Tilly - whose condition is deemed undiagnosable - is kicked out of the last school in the area, her mother Alexandra is out of ideas.
The family turns to Camp Harmony and the wisdom of child behavior guru Scott Bean for a solution. But what they discover in the woods of New Hampshire will push them to the very limit. Told from the alternating perspectives of both Alexandra and her younger daughter Iris (the book's Nick Carraway), this is a unputdownable story about the strength of love, the bonds of family, and how you survive the unthinkable.
Prologue
In another world, you make it work. In another world, you never even hear the name "Scott Bean." Or you do, and you maybe even subscribe to his newsletter, but on the night that he comes to speak at a library not far from your house, Iris is sent home from school with a stomach bug, or Josh is out of town and you don't want to hire a sitter. You figure you'll catch him next time. Later, when you hear his name on the news and it sounds familiar, you shake your head and think, "What a wacko." It doesn't even occur to you to say, "That could have been me." Because you know yourself, and it goes without saying. You would never get mixed up in something like that. End of story.
Chapter 1
Iris
June 3, 2012: New Hampshire
The camp is in New Hampshire. We've been driving for two days now—well, not literally, because we stopped at a hotel overnight and we've taken breaks to eat and go to the bathroom, but you know what I mean. We've been driving ...
Parkhurst writes with compassion and sensitivity about the experience of parenting and fervently loving a child drastically different from the one you imagined...continued
Full Review
(560 words)
(Reviewed by Norah Piehl).
Jami Attenberg, New York Times bestselling author of The Middlesteins
A fascinating tale of a family taking a crazy risk to save themselves. I read it in one giant gulp - Harmony is absolutely riveting. Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author of Leaving Time
Gorgeously written and patently original. Kim Edwards, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Memory Keeper's Daughter
In this gripping, timely novel, Carolyn Parkhurst follows the Hammond family as they give up everything... and ultimately reveals the healing power of love.Like many kids on the autism spectrum, Tilly has a passionate interest, one she loves to research and that she'll happily talk your ear off about if you ask (or even if you don't). In her case, she's fascinated by massive sculptures past and present, from the Colossus of Rhodes to the Lincoln Monument.
More than anything else, though, Tilly likes to talk about the Spring Temple Buddha, the world's largest statue. Built between 1997 and 2008 in a relatively remote part of China's HenanProvince (a common site for Buddhist pilgrimages) the statue stands 420 feet tall (502 if you count the base, which Tilly doesn't). The statue depicts Vairocana Buddha, which illustrates, among other things, "shunyata," the Buddhist ...
If you liked Harmony, try these:
by Edward Hoagland
Published 2016
Sixty years after the publication of his first novel, Cat Man, Edward Hogland is publishing his twenty-fifth book at the age of eighty-three.
by Paul Harding
Published 2014
A stunning mosaic of human experience, Enon affirms Paul Harding as one of the most gifted and profound writers of his generation.
Serial Killer Games
by Kate Posey
A morbidly funny and emotionally resonant novel about the ways life—and love—can sneak up on us (no matter how much pepper spray we carry).
Awake in the Floating City
by Susanna Kwan
A debut novel about an artist and a 130-year-old woman bound by love and memory in a future, flooded San Francisco.
The Original Daughter
by Jemimah Wei
A dazzling debut by Jemimah Wei about ambition, sisterhood, and family bonds in turn-of-the-millennium Singapore.
Ginseng Roots
by Craig Thompson
A new graphic memoir from the author of Blankets and Habibi about class, childhood labor, and Wisconsin’s ginseng industry.
These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!