What is Jillian Medoff reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Jillian Medoff, author of When We Were Bright and Beautiful.

Her entry begins:

I’m a voracious reader, and always carry at least one book wherever I go. Recently, I recently went on a non-fiction binge and read three books in a row: Dopesick (Beth Macy) about the opioid epidemic, Bad Blood (John Carreyrou) about Elizabeth Holmes and the Theranos scandal, and The Premonition (Michael Lewis) about the COVID-19 pandemic.

I love non-fiction books that read like novels, and...[read on]

About When We Were Bright and Beautiful, from the publisher:

You can have everything, and still not have enough.

Cassie Quinn may only be twenty-three, but she knows a few things. One: money can’t buy happiness, but it’s certainly better to have it. Two: family matters most. Three: her younger brother Billy is not a rapist.

When Billy, a junior at Princeton, is arrested for assaulting his ex-girlfriend, Cassie races home to Manhattan to join forces with her big brother Nate and their parents, Lawrence and Eleanor. The Quinns scramble to hire the best legal minds money can buy, but Billy fits the all-too-familiar sex-offender profile—white, athletic, and privileged—that makes headlines and sways juries.

Meanwhile, Cassie struggles to understand why Billy’s ex Diana would go this far, even if the breakup was painful. And she knows how the end of first love can destroy someone: Her own years-long affair with a powerful, charismatic man left her shattered, and she’s only recently regained her footing.

As reporters converge outside their Upper East Side landmark building, the Quinns gird themselves for a media-saturated trial, and Cassie vows she’ll do whatever it takes to save Billy. But what if that means exposing her own darkest secrets to the world?

Lightning-paced and psychologically astute as it rockets toward an explosive ending, When We Were Bright and Beautiful is a dazzling novel that asks: who will pay the price when the truth is revealed?

Visit Jillian Medoff's website.

My Book, The Movie: This Could Hurt.

Writers Read: Jillian Medoff (January 2018).

The Page 69 Test: When We Were Bright and Beautiful.

Writers Read: Jillian Medoff.

--Marshal Zeringue