Divide Me by Zero

It's almost impossible to put the book down without devouring it in one sitting. A poignant, vivid, and frequently funny novel. Lara Vapnyar is one of my very favorite writers: funny and true and with the rare talent to assemble one ideally telling scene after another. She is also one of the few writers I would recommend to all my friends, with all their varying tastes, because the charisma of her storytelling is unmissable.--Rivka Galchen Woven together with math concepts and plenty of raw feelings, this is a love story for those who are forever engaged in the pursuit of happiness. (Starred Review) Among the many pleasures of the novel is Vapnyar's portrayal of the intellectual connection Katya has with her children, which is disarmingly lovely. ... This is a frank, amusing, and melancholy novel. Vapnyar's latest is the fascinating story of a brilliant, emotionally volatile protagonist whose wicked humor appears in frequent asides made directly to the reader, along with a smattering of whimsical graphics, and Nina's handwritten notes for her unrealized textbook. Smart, complicated, irresistible. Divide Me by Zero plunges into dark comedic territory with savage grace ... A novel that treats the emotional territory of adulthood with devastating aplomb. Divide Me by Zero is, despite its honestly about the difficulties of a life fully lived, is a celebration: a sensitively told, honest account of the messiness and beauty of loving with abandon and living in a manner that defies easy categorization, numerical or otherwise. Divide Me by Zero is a keen, penetrating novel about the quest for love--romantic and otherwise--that drives one woman's life. Lara Vapnyar brilliantly evokes (by way of, yes, math) a span of decades, a pair of continents, and a plethora of uneasy emotions. This book is so unflinchingly honest about the human condition that I couldn't put it down.--Helen Phillips