Reviews
"Blisteringly funny, feverishly smart, heartbreaking, and true. . . . Fleishman Is in Trouble is an essential read for anyone who's wondered how to navigate loving (and hating) the people we choose." --Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, author of The Nest, "This glorious debut has the humor of Maria Semple, the heart of Meg Wolitzer, the lustiness of Philip Roth, and a voice that is pure. It's wild and wonderful and goes in so many directions, each with profundity--my favorite thing that novels can do. How does one's favorite journalist become one's new favorite novelist? With this book." --Emma Straub "When his ex drops the kids off and doesn't come back, a father of two revisits the choices that led to this moment. He searches for answers, hilariously and heartbreakingly avoiding the darkest questions. Brodesser-Akner's debut is a referendum on marriage, friendship, and how we live (and love) right now." -- People "Whip-smart, gleefully scatological . . . [Brodesser-Akner] aims a perfect gimlet eye at the city's relentless self-regard. . . . But her best trick may be the novel's narrator: An elusive presence identified at first only as an old friend of Toby's from their study-abroad days, she turns out to be both the book's Trojan horse and--in a brilliant third-act pivot--its greatest gift, transforming a fizzy comedy of manners into something genuinely, unexpectedly profound." -- Entertainment Weekly "Many novelists have written excellent fictional indictments of interpersonal and systemic sexism. Not since Teju Cole's Open City --a very different book in all other respects--has a novelist put the reader on the wrong side the way Brodesser-Akner does. To do so, she uses a lot of intelligence, a lot of anger, a great sense of humor and a whole new variation on the magic we know from her magazine work. The result is a maddening, unsettling masterpiece, and, yes, you will be moved and inexplicably grateful at the end." --NPR "In her witty and well-observed debut, Taffy Brodesser-Akner updates the miserable-matrimony novel, dropping it squarely in our times. . . . Brodesser-Akner has written a potent, upsetting and satisfying novel, illustrating how the marital pledge--build our life together--overlooks a key fact: There are two lives." -- The New York Times Book Review "Electric . . . Brodesser-Akner's first foray into fiction--set in Manhattan, the Hamptons, and Israel--is funny, stylish, and insightful, whether describing men's challenged communication skills or the knife juggler's agility required to maintain a modern marriage."-- O: The Oprah Magazine "Taffy Brodesser-Akner's sharp debut novel is packed with humor and heart. In it, the titular trouble begins when Toby Fleishman realizes that Rachel--his wife of 15 years, from whom he's now separated--is missing. Where has she gone, and why? This book will have you racing through the pages to find the answers." -- Southern Living "Everything you could wish for in a satisfying summer read . . . Taffy Brodesser-Akner's page-turner doubles as a satirical take on modern relationships." -- Women's Health
