Divide Me by Zero

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. 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 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. 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) 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