Pg. 99: Laura Moriarty's "The Rest of Her Life"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Laura Moriarty's The Rest of Her Life.

About the novel, from the publisher:

In The Rest of Her Life, Laura Moriarty delivers a luminous, compassionate, and provocative look at how mothers and daughters with the best intentions can be blind to the harm they do to one another.

Leigh is the mother of high-achieving, popular high school senior Kara. Their relationship is already strained for reasons Leigh does not fully understand when, in a moment of carelessness, Kara makes a mistake that ends in tragedy -- the effects of which not only divide Leigh’s family, but polarize the entire community. We see the story from Leigh’s perspective, as she grapples with the hard reality of what her daughter has done and the devastating consequences her actions have on the family of another teenage girl in town, all while struggling to protect Kara in the face of rising public outcry.

Like the best works of Jane Hamilton, Jodi Picoult, and Alice Sebold, Laura Moriarty’s The Rest of Her Life is a novel of complex moral dilemma, filled with nuanced characters and a page-turning plot that makes readers ask themselves, “What would I do?”

Among the early praise for The Rest of Her Life:

“Are the sins of the parents visited upon the children, or vice versa? Laura Moriarty’s raw, honest novel about an ordinary family whose life changes in one extraordinary moment resonates like an emotional tuning fork. You’ll be asking yourself what you would do in this situation, long after you’ve finished reading.”
--Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author of My Sister’s Keeper and Nineteen Minutes

“Laura Moriarty writes with unflinching honesty and clear-eyed compassion … Her characters are as real as mirrors, and sentiment never crosses the lines to sentimentality. Laura Moriarty can do this surpassingly well. I carried this book everywhere I went.”
--Jacquelyn Mitchard, New York Times bestselling author of The Deep End of the Ocean and Cage of Stars

"[A]n intelligent, provocative and memorable novel."
--Kansas City Star

"Powerful, original, and utterly absorbing, Moriarty's novel will stay with the reader long after the final page is turned."
--Booklist

Read Chapter One from The Rest of Her Life and learn more about the book at Laura Moriarty's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Rest of Her Life.

--Marshal Zeringue