Showing results by author "Curtis Sittenfeld" in All Categories

Lee Fiora is a shy 14-year-old when she leaves small-town Indiana for a scholarship at Ault, an exclusive boarding school in Massachusetts. Her head is filled with images from the school brochure of handsome boys in sweaters leaning against old brick buildings, girls running with lacrosse sticks across pristine athletics fields, everyone singing hymns in chapel. But as she soon learns, Ault is a minefield of unstated rules and incomprehensible social rituals, and Lee must work hard to find - and maintain - her place in the pecking order.

The theme that unites these stories in this dazzling first collection by Curtis Sittenfeld is how even the cleverest people tend to misread others and how much we all deceive ourselves. Sharp and tender, funny and wise, this collection shows Sittenfeld’s knack for creating real, believable characters while also skewering contemporary mores with brilliant dry wit.

Identical twins Kate and Violet are about as unlike as two peas from the same pod can be. Except in one respect - they share a hidden gift they call ‘the Senses’, a special kind of intuition that can allow them to see things that are yet to come. After Kate inadvertently reveals their secret when they are 13 years old, they are set on diverging paths into their adult lives. Twenty years later, Kate suppresses her premonitions in the hope of leading a normal family life, while Violet lives alone and works as a psychic medium.

Hannah is a confused 14-year-old. In the magazines she reads, celebrities plan elaborate weddings; in Hannah's own life, her parents' marriage is crumbling. Over the next decade and a half, love throws her some complicated questions. At what point can you no longer blame your adult failures on your messed-up childhood? Is settling for someone who's not your soulmate an act of maturity or an admission of defeat? And if you move to another state for a guy who might not love you back, are you being plucky - or just pathetic?

Suburban friends fall out after a racist encounter at a birthday party is caught on video and posted on Facebook; an illustrious Manhattan film crew is victim of its own snobbery when its members underestimate a pre-school teacher from the Mid-West; and a group of young writers fight about love and narrative style as they compete for a prestigious bursary.

Mrs. Bennets Leben dreht sich nur um das Eine: Wie kann sie es bloß schaffen, dass ihre fünf Töchter endlich den Richtigen finden? Zumindest für Jane, die Älteste, gibt es Hoffnung: Chip Bingley, der attraktive Arzt, der noch vor kurzem als Bachelor in der Fernsehshow "Vermählung" vergeblich nach der großen Liebe suchte, zieht in die Kleinstadt. Und gleich beim ersten Zusammentreffen knistert es zwischen Chip und Jane - ganz zur Freude von Mrs. Bennets.