Release Date : August 13, 2019
2020 IPPY Awards Gold Winner in Young Adult Fiction
2020 Independent Press Awards Distinguished Favorite in Young Adult Fiction
2019 Moonbeam Award Gold Medal Winner, Young Adult Fiction―Historical
2020 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Awards Silver Winner in Fiction
2019 Best Book Award Finalist in Fiction (Young Adult)
2019 Sarton Women’s Book Awards Finalist in Historical Fiction
About The Book:
It’s Berkeley in the 1960s, and all Martha Goldenthal wants is to do well at Berkeley High and plan for college. But her home life is a cauldron of kooky ideas, impossible demands, and explosive physical violence. Her father, Jules, is an iconoclast who hates academia and can’t control his fists. Her mother, Willa, has made a career of victimhood and expects Martha and her siblings, Hildy and Drew, to fend for themselves. Meanwhile, Jules’s classical record store, located directly across the street from the U.C. Berkeley campus, is ground zero for riots and tear gas.
Martha perseveres with the help of her best friend, who offers laughter, advice about boys, and hospitality. But when Willa and Jules divorce and Jules loses his store and livelihood, Willa goes entirely off the rails. A heartless boarding school placement, eviction from the family home, and an unlikely custody case wind up putting Martha and Drew in Jules’s care. Can Martha stand up to her father to do the one thing she knows she must―go to college?
With its running “soundtrack” of classical recordings and rock music and its vivid scenes of Berkeley at its most turbulent, Shrug is the absorbing, harrowing, and ultimately uplifting story of one young woman’s journey toward independence.
About The Author:
LISA BRAVER MOSS is the author of the award-winning novel “Shrug” (She Writes Press, Aug. 13, 2019). Her work has appeared in Parents, Tikkun, Lilith, the Huffington Post and more. Moss is the author of the novel “The Measure of His Grief” (Notim Press, 2010). Her nonfiction book credits include “Celebrating Family: Our Lifelong Bonds with Parents and Siblings” (Wildcat Canyon Press, 1999) and, as a co-author, “The Mother’s Companion: A Comforting Guide to the Early Years of Motherhood” (Council Oak Books, 2001). She is also the co-author of “Celebrating Brit Shalom” (Notim Press, 2015), the first-ever book of ceremonies and music for Jewish families opting out of circumcision. Moss is a survivor of childhood domestic violence and grew up in Berkeley, California. She lives with her husband in nearby Piedmont. They have two grown sons. https://www.lisabravermoss.com/
Social Media:
Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Author/Lisa-Braver-Moss-Author
Instagram: https://instagram.com/lisabravermoss
Twitter: @lisabravermoss
Book Reviews:
As persuasive as the memoirs Educated and The Glass Castle, Shrug yanks at the heartstrings… I felt white-knuckled empathy for the tough and fragile Martha.” ―Carolyn McVickar Edwards, author of Return of the Light and The Storyteller’s Goddess
“A book that slowly creeps up on you before grabbing you by the throat and demanding that you pay attention. I highly recommend this read.” ―Grant Leishman, Readers’ Favorite
“Rich with colorful characters, vivid descriptions and subtle insights… Moss’s graceful prose brings you along on this poignant coming-of-age journey with pathos and humor.” ―Rifka Kreiter, author of Home Free: Adventures of a Child of the Sixties
“Moss takes achingly relatable teenage angst and subjects it to parents so off-the-rails that the explosive Berkley antics around the Vietnam War ‘outside’ pale next to the domestic horror of the war at home―and then sets it to music. A book with a voice for generations, from Boomers to their grandchildren.” ―Rita Dragonette, author of The Fourteenth of September
“Gripping from beginning to end, this beautifully written work is impossible to put down.”―The BookLife Prize
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