The Learning Curve

March 11, 2019
The complexities of intimacy and consent are explored in this smart, engaging coming-of-age story from Berman (Perennials). Fiona Larkin and Liv Langley are best friends and codependent polar opposites in their senior year of college, though Fiona lags a semester behind, having taken time off to deal with the death of her 13-year-old sister. Fiona and Liv’s relationship is strained when both women start crushing on visiting professor Oliver Ash, despite, or perhaps because of, the rumors about his inappropriate sexual relationship with an underage student at the last school at which he taught. As the girls make halting attempts to untangle their own desires, grow closer with Oliver, and communicate honestly with each other, Oliver’s wife and five-year-old son, left behind in Berlin, deal with his absence. Things come to a head on a disastrous trip to Paris, where all three women, the novel’s narrators, collide. Readers expecting a typical love triangle won’t find one. Instead, Berman delivers a thorough and incredibly timely investigation into relationship power imbalances that’s sure to start a lot of conversations. Agent: M. Kaffel Simonoff, DeFiore & Co.

Karissa Vacker elegantly gives voice to the story of three different women who are experiencing transformative--and sometimes traumatic--changes in their lives. For Liv and Fionna, it is the changes that take place after their last years at Buchanan College as they develop into adulthood during the recession of the early 2000s. For Simone, it is adjusting to infertility and her husband's absence as he leaves her in Berlin to teach briefly at Buchanan. Vacker excels with accents, fluidly moving back and forth between French, American, and even an ambiguous combination for an American who has spent decades in Europe. The audiobook is filled with highly emotional moments, and Vacker rises to the challenge of expressing heartache and one character's embracing of her fledgling sexuality. V.B. � AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine