There are a lot of books that focus on young adults finding their way and becoming independent. Sometimes this transition starts in the teenage years and sometimes considerably later! Here are a few books that I thought were interesting.
My sixth book of 2025 was A Home at the End of the World by Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours. It was an interesting book about three main characters and a couple of others that sometimes joined the group. Bobby, Jonathan, and Clare were adult friends and roommates in the 1980s. Bobby and Clare were also lovers but both were in love with Jonathan, who loved both of them. It was an emotionally complex scenario, especially once the baby arrived.
On one hand, it was a unique story of fairly dysfunctional people coming together to form a semi-functional family. I say semi-functional because they supported themselves and, to some extent, each other. On the other hand, there seemed to be a lack of respect for each other, except for Bobby, who seemed to be a genuinely caring person though not the brightest guy. Jonathan and Clare were an odd pair of friends – at first, it seemed like a good fit. They had known each other for years and probably would have been a couple were it not for the fact that Jonathan was gay. They had good banter – think the TV show Will and Grace – and were smart and witty. They truly cared about each other and lived together before Bobby joined them in New York City. When Bobby came to live with them, the dynamic was thrown off a bit, as I believe Jonathan and Clare became a bit more self-absorbed, as each was prone to do, and their banter became sharper and a little meaner.
The trio moved upstate to a small house in the country. Bobby and Jonathan started a cafe and Clare inherited money – so they were able to create a new life. Clare had a baby with Bobby, yet Jonathan considered himself the father and Clare wanted him to be the father. Erich moved in with them – he had been Jonathan’s lover and was dying of AIDS. Jonathan’s mother Alice is part of their world but she lives in Arizona. Interestingly, she is the one we can see as having a bright future. Things unraveled for our three friends, plus the baby and Erich. Eventually and sadly, things came apart. We don’t know what happened to them all in the long term and, on some level, I don’t particularly care, which is commentary in itself.
It was an interesting book and a good read but I felt it could have been better. There were times when the characters were drawn to be quirky or clever … maybe a little too quirky or clever … at the expense of being more deeply explored. The main characters carried baggage from their childhoods, as most of us do. Healthy people are able to process many of their issues – with time, patience, love, therapy, etc. The chapters alternated between the characters (much like Cunningham’s book, The Hours), so we spent a lot of time in the characters’ heads – there was ample time to go deeper or to find a way to explore the impact of their personalities and choices on their lives. It’s a shame that I felt a little disappointed and empty at the end.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote was another story of young adults starting out in the world and making questionable choices. The movie tacked on a love story and Mickey Rooney’s awful turn as Mr. Yunioshi but the original story takes care of these two issues! I just couldn’t help hearing Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard in my head as I read it. They were lovely and charming in that movie. However, there are many differences between the book and the movie.
The novella is a lovely though darker story about a young author and his downstairs neighbor, Holly Golightly. The author and Holly are both seeking “something” and are trying to figure out where they belong. They were not quite as charming as in the movie, though they were compelling characters. In 1958, when it was written, the story must have struck a cord with some, but been quite an alien concept to others. It’s interesting to consider the impact of the evolution of time on literature – what was once shocking becomes normal or even mundane with the passing years.
The story is probably more relatable for many young adults who are now starting out in life – though hopefully they are not modeling Holly’s career choices! She is such an interesting character. The story made me see that you have to look deeper to understand and empathize with people. On one hand, Holly could seem very superficial, but there was more to her than what she projected to the world. And even when people do not engender sympathy, you never really know what is going on in their lives.
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver is a book that many people love. I liked the book and the storyline but eventually found the charcters to be more like archetypes than real people. I also felt that the book was trying to manipulate me into feeling a certain way about the characters and their actions. On the other hand, there is a lot of genuine emotion in the story and it was worth spending some time to get to know the characters.
The story was interesting, as it follows a missionary family in Africa. To say that the family experienced a lot of new things is an understatement! They had to learn that some of their knowledge doesn’t translate to a new environment and that they moved to a new cultural milieu. Although one child dies from a snake bite, it was great to see the other three daughters grow up and move on with their lives. The options for women and children were quite limited in the time of the story and therefore they were unable to exert much control over the events of their lives. However, there was a certain predicability to some of the outcomes and it would have been nice to see more originality in the plotting. I liked and disliked the characters at different times. This is not a bad thing – no one is all good or all bad, so a mix is important for ensuring some depth of character.
A Good Man Is Hard To Find by Flannery O’Connor is an interesting story. Though between In Cold Blood, Animal Farm, Wuthering Heights, and this short story, I may be losing faith in humanity! This story has elements of humor, violence, hypocrisy and religion – all of which provide insight into the characters. The grandmother is a judgmental and religious person who views herself has superior to others. Her criticism of others’ behaviors and actions are sanctimonious. As the main character, she fostered tension. “The Misfit” is the other key character.
The interaction between the grandmother and The Misfit plays out and amplifies the hypocrisy of the grandmother, who focuses on her own safety and on trying to “help” The Misfit find God, rather than on her family’s safety. The interaction also demonstrated the potential of The Misfit to have been something else, as he considers his views on people and killing. It is a nuanced story that is familiar yet shocking. All that said, I didn’t really connect with the characters. I don’t need to like the characters, but I do need to find them compelling or to connect with them in some way. I didn’t have that with this story.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark was enjoyable but it was not my favorite. I saw the movie again several months ago and think I like the movie better than the book. The movie seemed to make a better case for the “betrayal” and also for Miss Brodie’s “offenses” that led to her, well, no longer being in her prime. This story follows a group of girls from about 10 years of age through 18 in the 1930s, with glimpses into their futures. They were processing the impact of an unusual teacher, Jean Brodie.
The influence of teachers is interesting, as students may be encouraged or discouraged based on the feedback they receive at an early age. On one hand, Miss Brodie is smart and wants her girls to experience culture and worldly matters not covered by the curriculum – the kind of fun teacher we all want. On the other hand, she has an agenda to push and uses the girls to see her views pushed forward – the kind of teacher parents probably fear. From the girls’ perspectives, they alternately view her as fabulous/all-knowing and ridiculous/agenda-driven. Sandy, as the main focus of the story, tends to see the latter more than the other girls – and as time goes on, she would add dangerous to that list.
The six “Brodie set” girls seem to represent certain traits – one is smart, another pretty/sex-focused, another into sports, etc. Although this is not my favorite set-up, it works in favor of Miss Brodie steering them into certain directions. Like most groups of friends, there are pairings of girls who share certain confidences. In this case, Sandy (smart – going into psychology) and Jenny (pretty – going to be a model or actress) – particularly focus on Miss Brodie’s love life, as she is in love with the married art teacher and having an affair with the unmarried music teacher.
In the book, I found Sandy’s duplicity in both continuing a relationship with Miss Brodie while turning against her to be rather undefined. She was always skeptical about Miss Brodie’s views but at some point, apparently enough was enough. Sandy told the headmistress about Miss Brodie’s fascination with fascism (in the form of Mussolini mostly but also of Hitler) as a means of getting her fired. The trigger was a young girl following her brother to the Spanish Civil War because of Miss Brodie’s romanticized view of the War and Franco. In the movie, this was a little more explicit – the girl killed was one of the Brodie set and Miss Brodie’s political leanings were a bigger part of the story, as was Sandy’s chafing at Miss Brodie’s pronouncements about their futures. The book just didn’t engage me as I thought it would … and, after all, the movie had Maggie Smith!
