“I first came across Stoicism in The New York Times. I had been living with my mother for six months, and happened upon their weekly philosophy column. It laid out Stoicism’s first principle: events are natural. Events in and of themselves don’t contain emotion. Yet we go through life as if events and our emotional reactions are inextricably twinned. Our car breaks down? Of course we’re upset! Someone else gets the job we wanted? Of course we’re jealous…. What we’re having the emotional freakout about is not the event itself, but what we tell ourselves about the event.”

GO GENTLE is the first rom-com I can remember that uses ancient Greek philosophy to hold up its substantial plot and unique characters. It’s actually the first of many things that I love about this book. The novel is about doing everything and to go gentle amidst perhaps the most chaotic and downright charming overexertion in any recent fiction.

"GO GENTLE is hard to put down --- and the final events will stay with readers long after the last page is turned. This is the perfect book for spring, a time for renewal and recharging."

The author of the modern classic WHERE’D YOU GO, BERNADETTE, Maria Semple is a former television comedy writer with great prose chops as well. Her latest effort is yet another example of how adept she is at presenting a woman’s middle age and the craziness it creates. It also demonstrates how well she understands that any story makes even more sense when we can laugh out loud at its every word.

The female protagonist is Adora Hazzard, an exotic name for an exotic gal. A Stoic philosopher and scholar, she is once divorced. Adora works for a rich family, tutoring their young sons in Stoic theory and tries to live up to her philosophy in all parts of her life. She applies it to the way she interacts with her daughter, the new freedom of being single, and her daily activities in one of New York City’s most revered buildings, the Ansonia. There, she has brought together a group of like-minded women called a “coven” in order to divide up the cares and concerns of an Upper West Side resident --- splitting big-box-store groceries, sharing theater ticket subscriptions, and providing an all-around hand to the others when needed.

Into this beautifully laid-out plan comes a mysterious stranger. And with that comes a James Bond-type compendium of issues: art theft, national intrigue, and a love affair that threatens to undo everything she has worked so hard to create for herself. Adora is adored and tricked and lives to fight for the new desires these problems raise in her. And it’s one helluva good ride!

Maria Semple is a truly American author who sees the pathos, chaos and humor in each episode, in each character’s needs and wants. The Stoic aspect gives us a great jumping-off point for Adora, the perfect loose string on the sweater that little by dramatic little unwinds throughout the multi-tiered story.

Those who enjoyed the antics and morals of WHERE’D YOU GO, BERNADETTE will really engage with the tremendously comic yet heartfelt changes that Adora has to deal with when nothing around her looks like it should anymore. Her relationships with her ex, her daughter, her employers, her coven, and the new entity that riles her up take her on a whirlwind tour of big money and bigger emotions, more than perhaps the Stoics themselves could have handled. As her humane self takes over, inviting all kinds of emotional and empathetic responses in her, Adora finds a renewed sense of joy and purpose.

GO GENTLE is hard to put down --- and the final events will stay with readers long after the last page is turned. This is the perfect book for spring, a time for renewal and recharging.