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Beginning Middle End

No one writes about family, memory, and the quiet ways we begin again quite like Valeria Luiselli. After the unraveling of her marriage, a mother takes her young daughter to Sicily, where the landscapes, ancient ruins, and stories of the women who came before them become part of their own search for a new beginning. This is a thoughtful, beautifully layered novel about rebuilding a life after it falls apart, and Luiselli captures with remarkable precision what it means to start over while a child is watching, absorbing, and making sense of it all alongside you. Tender, intelligent, and quietly profound, Beginning Middle End asks where our stories begin, how they're passed down, and whether we ever really get to rewrite them. It is a book to savor and, hands down, my favorite for the end of summer. Cue John Prine's song "Summer's End" while you read.