The Paper Palace (Reese's Book Club): A Novel
INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK
OVER 2 MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE
“Filled with secrets, love, lies and a summer beach house. What more could you ask?”—Parade
“A deeply emotional love story…the unraveling of secrets, lies and a very complex love triangle.” —Reese Witherspoon
“[An] irresistible placement of a complicated family in a bewitching place.” —The New York Times
A story of summer, secrets, love, and lies: in the course of a singular day on Cape Cod, one woman must make a life-changing decision that has been brewing for decades.
“This house, this place, knows all my secrets.”
It is a perfect August morning, and Elle, a fifty-year-old happily married mother of three, awakens at “The Paper Palace”—the family summer place which she has visited every summer of her life. But this morning is different: last night Elle and her oldest friend Jonas crept out the back door into the darkness and had sex with each other for the first time, all while their spouses chatted away inside. Now, over the next twenty-four hours, Elle will have to decide between the life she has made with her genuinely beloved husband, Peter, and the life she always imagined she would have had with her childhood love, Jonas, if a tragic event hadn’t forever changed the course of their lives. As Heller colors in the experiences that have led Elle to this day, we arrive at her ultimate decision with all its complexity. Tender yet devastating, The Paper Palace considers the tensions between desire and dignity, the legacies of abuse, and the crimes and misdemeanors of families.
REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK
OVER 2 MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE
“Filled with secrets, love, lies and a summer beach house. What more could you ask?”—Parade
“A deeply emotional love story…the unraveling of secrets, lies and a very complex love triangle.” —Reese Witherspoon
“[An] irresistible placement of a complicated family in a bewitching place.” —The New York Times
A story of summer, secrets, love, and lies: in the course of a singular day on Cape Cod, one woman must make a life-changing decision that has been brewing for decades.
“This house, this place, knows all my secrets.”
It is a perfect August morning, and Elle, a fifty-year-old happily married mother of three, awakens at “The Paper Palace”—the family summer place which she has visited every summer of her life. But this morning is different: last night Elle and her oldest friend Jonas crept out the back door into the darkness and had sex with each other for the first time, all while their spouses chatted away inside. Now, over the next twenty-four hours, Elle will have to decide between the life she has made with her genuinely beloved husband, Peter, and the life she always imagined she would have had with her childhood love, Jonas, if a tragic event hadn’t forever changed the course of their lives. As Heller colors in the experiences that have led Elle to this day, we arrive at her ultimate decision with all its complexity. Tender yet devastating, The Paper Palace considers the tensions between desire and dignity, the legacies of abuse, and the crimes and misdemeanors of families.
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✨ Summarized by Bookclubs AI
Readers say *The Paper Palace* is a richly written, emotionally complex novel that challenges initial expectations, revealing deeper themes of human c...
Este libro del mes de mayo en el club fue uno de esos libros que engañan al lector.
Empiezas pensando que será una historia de amor o un drama familiar y de pronto te das cuenta de que wow! estás leyendo algo mucho más complejo, incómodo y profundamente humano.
Fue un libro que mueve muchas emociones y que fue demasiado inesperado.
El final es muy libreee a la interpretación del lector.
Hard to get interested in. Kept reading hoping it would get better. Book didn’t even have an ending.
Loved this totally gripping and if you haven't read spoilers, plenty of OMG moments. Covers some sensitive subjects and takes you through these journeys in the sensitive way they should be dealt with but still some shock moments. The ending left me hooked!
I thought this was going to be a typical wife cheats on husband while husband is inside story, but it is so much more. It is a family drama filled with abuse, incest, rape, and neglect. The setting is a series of cabins built in The Back Woods of Cape Cod where Elle and her family have vacationed for decades. The beginning of the book was a bit confusing because the story is told in multiple timelines within a chapter; jumping from the past to present with only the time noted. (Then you knew you were back in the present). The present story takes place over 24 hours, but the background story is across 50 years. There are so many characters in the past story because of multiple divorces that it was hard to keep everyone straight. The lies, secrets and dysfunction are what shape Elle into the woman she is today. What choice does she make in the end? I have read the ending more than once and it isn't clear. Maybe the author did that on purpose; lots of things to discuss! This is a fast, complusive read.
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