Ask Me Again by Clare Sestanovitch – Eva is sixteen years old and living in middle-class Brooklyn when she meets Jamie by chance. He is the same age, but living the life of the super-rich in upper Manhattan. Eva is attentive, guarded and eager to appear normal. In contrast, Jamie is fearless, mystifying and outlandish. Eva’s family is kind and hospitable, but Jamie avoids going home to his. Despite their differences, they immediately forge a close friendship.
While Eva leaves high school for college and falls in and out of love, Jamie drops out of school and finds himself drawn towards radical experiments in politics and religion. Eventually, he joins the Occupy Wall Street movement. Eva, so often trapped by self-doubt, is awed and repelled by the strength of Jamie’s convictions.
Their diverse spheres appear to be spiralling them away from each other, but it soon becomes obvious that they are both circling the same question – how do you determine who you are and whether your beliefs are sound in a divided and unjust world?
This is an intricately written novel of two young people trying to understand and navigate their lives through a rapidly changing world. Each of them takes different pathways to achieve the goals that are becoming important to them.
As they follow their hopes and dreams, these pathways bring them together, while driving them apart. A complex love story of sorts, the narrative shows how relationships can alter our opinions and change our whole psyche.
Ask Me Again is a somewhat disturbing read for the year.
ISBN: 9781529076011
Publisher: Pan Macmillan Australia
Ask Me Again is available in paperback and e-book.
About Clare Sestanovich
Clare Sestanovich is the author of Objects of Desire, published by Picador, which was a finalist for the PEN Robert W. Bingham Prize. She was named a ‘5 Under 35’ honoree by the National Book Foundation in 2022. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Harper’s, The Drift, and Electric Literature. She lives in Brooklyn.
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