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A Quitter’s Paradise – Books and Mischief A Quitter’s Paradise – Books and Mischief

Our protagonist in A Quitter’s Paradise is Eleanor, a fourth year PhD student whose mother has just died. This debut novel examines the grief of a young woman desperate to detach from the reality of her mother’s death and estrangement of her family. Eleanor quits her PhD program in neuroscience; Narisa disappears for good while a teen, after one too many fights with her disapproving parents.A masterpiece that wrangles several lifetimes of wisdom, loss and heartbreak into a slim novel you can clutch to your chest, pass on to your sharpest, most mercurial friends and say: read this, feel this!

A Quitter’s Paradise by Elysa Chang - Ashley Hajimirsadeghi A Quitter’s Paradise by Elysa Chang - Ashley Hajimirsadeghi

Resisting at every turn, Eleanor tumbles blindly down a path that will force her to confront her present. I think the closest comparison you could compare this book to is Disorientation, which is about another PhD student trying to uncover a secret about a Chinese poet she’s studying.

And at some point I understood, I’m not getting more information out of her—that’s part of her charm, right?