? UNDER THE LAMPLIGHT-

The Book of Goose, described as psychologically astute, is a beautiful coming of age tale centered around love, friendship, and questions the purity of youth. The author, Yiyun Li, whom the New York Times called “one of our finest living authors,” perfectly pens a reflection of mistakes of the past from the perspective of Agnes, a French woman living in the US, who receives news that her childhood best friend Fabienne, who holds a shocking secret, is dead.

Agnes takes us on a journey of their lives together in the postwar French countryside where they led difficult lives and isolated themselves in their own world. While Agnes gets to attend school, Fabienne, not particularly liked by the other villagers, tends to farm animals and her drunken brothers and father.

Until one day, Fabienne changes all that by devising a literary hoax that thrusts our narrator into the spotlight. The pair must then navigate fame, fortune, and loss with the risk of destroying their friendship forever.

Li perfectly forces us to question whether all is fair during one’s youth, making it difficult for the reader to decide whether their mistakes during their years growing up were justified or not.

Her writing is unique and intimate, making the book definitely worth it for someone looking for a nostalgic read with approachable prose. She manages to create a world for readers to get lost in, similar to the world Fabienne and Agnes created for themselves, to escape their realities.

In the end, the book isn’t about what’s real and what’s not, says the Times, it’s about the reality we choose to live in. As Agnes says, “All worlds, fabricated or not, are equally real. And so they are equally unreal.”

You can find the book on Amazon.

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