Since my mom is dead, I thought I’d share my first review for Shred Sisters with you all. Yes, I want more pats on the head, gold stars, orchid leis around my neck, more ribbons, trophies, carrots, high fives, rainbows and pots of gold. I’m a middle child and a writer. There is no end to my need for validation and adoration. But you know all this. Indulge me!

 [KIRKUS STARRED REVIEW] 
The younger of two siblings grows up in the shadow of her beautiful, reckless, mentally ill sister. “Here are the ways I could start this story,” Amy Shred says, offering three choices in a brief prologue to memoirist and literary agent Lerner’s debut novel. “Olivia was breathtaking.” “For a long time, I was convinced that she was responsible for everything that went wrong.” “No one will love you more or hurt you more than a sister.” The engaging, thoughtful voice established here goes on to unfold the story of Amy’s childhood, coming of age, and early adulthood, all profoundly shaped by the wild trajectory of her older sister: a rebel, a runaway, a mental patient, a dropout, a thief, a missing person. Amy herself—called Bunny or Bun in the family—is the classic supersmart miserable outsider, bullied at school, friendless, always bewildered at the utter unfairness of life. What could be a nice normal Connecticut Jewish family is anything but as Amy’s parents are pushed far beyond their ability to cope, and ultimately their ability to stay married. Amy finishes a science major at college in three years and throws herself into graduate work at a lab at Columbia University, zigzags into publishing, finally loses her virginity, meets the man she will marry, and goes into therapy. The story unfolds with the verisimilitude of a memoir: Amy’s nuanced relationships with her mother, her father, and her partners are all utterly convincing and relatable. Her mother, Lorraine, is a particularly fine creation, both a very specific East Coast Jewish type and an archetypal maternal presence. “In the months and years after she died, I often saw the world through her eyes, as if I had inherited her mantle of judgment, her scoreboard in the sky.” Many of us know that feeling exactly.

A seamlessly constructed and absorbing fictional world, full of insight about how families work.

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Dear Beloved Readers of this Blog: I’m gearing up for the publication of Shred Sisters this October. I take P.T. Barnum as my inspiration for marketing. Meaning I’ll do anything and everything. I’ve been writing letters to indie bookstores, sending galleys to BookTok influencers, writing essays to place pre-publication, working on contact lists, planning a launch event, assembling lists of potential podcasts. I’ve honed my pitch, I’ve sent galleys to movie producers, and most important I’m trying to lose weight. I’m thinking I can realistically lose 10 pounds by pub date.

How many pounds do you think I can lose? Also, I’d be super grateful if you’d consider pre-ordering the novel. Pre-orders really help get the book launched.

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