This character-driven family drama won't be for everyone but I devoured every word. Korelitz's storytelling and choice of POV are unique, and the characters are both flawed and realistic. It's not the beachiest of my summer reads but I couldn't put it down.

Thanks to Celadon Books and NetGalley for the copy to review.

I really loved this author’s last book, The Plot, so I was excited to see a new book coming out, but this one failed to capture my attention in the same way. The concept of the story was interesting but all of the characters were either flat or impossible to like which made getting engaged more difficult. The writing style is good but not for me. It was full of too much description and felt like it could have been edited quite a bit. The style came across as pretentious and cold which I didn’t really think fit the character who was narrating. This is the story of a family - the parents have an odd relationship but the mother wants children so they do early IVF and have triplets and years later to help solve some of hte family’s issues a fourth child from the same batch of fertilized eggs. This wasn’t a bad family drama, but overalll I think it wasn’t for me.

The Latecomer is a story about an extremely dysfunctional family and their ups and downs through life. This is such a brilliant novel, full of love, hate, greed, loyalty and ultimately forgiveness. I really didn’t want this book to end. I felt fully invested in all of the characters (especially the siblings) who were so very different, complex and jaded. This is a rich and emotionally charged novel. Beautifully written, an absolutely satisfying read. I gave this work five very solid stars.










https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4756434321

The Latecomer ARC Review … coming late. 😅

Despite this being a slow, entirely character driven novel, I did get really pulled in about a third of the way through. I was very invested in how the relationships would play out, and I loved that the story was told through the perspective of the Latecomer herself.

It was a beautiful story of generational trauma and how politics, religion, race, identity, sexuality, and trauma can create divides and foster communication and healing even in one family. I love how the author presented each character without judgment and created space for the reader to view them in that frame of mind, with autonomy and respect.

The book did a lot of important things and had fantastic content but it did read more like a history and the ending didn’t quite satisfy me. Still a fantastic study by a talented author!

#thelatecomer #netgalley #jeanhanffkorelitz #netgalleyreview #bookreview

“They were two adults plus three children, made concurrently. They were five humans cohabiting. They were not, and never had been, a family.”

After years of trying to have a baby, Johanna finally produced triplets, Sally, Harrison and Lewyn. Her husband Salo went through the motions of fatherhood, but his real interests were elsewhere. “[Salo] ….had slipped past them all and disappeared — not in terms of his physical self, of course, though his physical self came home later and later each night, after longer and longer visits to his warehouse in Coney Island or Red Bank or wherever it was — but his attentive self, his essential self, which by then lived somewhere else entirely.” Seventeen years after the birth of the triplets, Johanna decided to use their last frozen embryo and add Phoebe to the family. “It seemed incredible that Johanna didn’t recognize the state of her own family, which was that he and Sally and Harrison couldn’t get far enough away – first and foremost from one another, but equally from their parents, and it should go without saying from this unasked-for and utterly ill-advised extraneous Oppenheimer.”

I am not a huge fan of family dramas with their predictable and banal crises, but I loved this family that is the opposite of warm and fuzzy. Each member of the family is prickly, acerbic, intelligent and articulate. The siblings see each other, and their parents, as little as possible even though two of them wind up at Cornell. Harrison is the most intellectual of the siblings and goes to a unique and very selective two year college where he becomes friends with Eli Absalom Stone, a self-taught African American wunderkind who has already published a successful book in which he “…called out his own generation….for complacency, anti-intellectualism, and carelessness with the English language.”

I enjoyed the author’s smart, light and fast-paced writing style and her unexpected take on family responsibility, religion, race and education. Ultimately, it is Phoebe (the latecomer) who is the catalyst for the revelation of secrets that draw the siblings closer together. The book was pretty long, but I was never bored or felt like skimming. Julia Whelan did an excellent job narrating the audiobook.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

This book is often described as “meandering” which I think is the perfect word for the writing, but I didn’t mind this aspect of the book and would even go so far as to say I enjoyed the ebb and flow. I love character driven novels like this one but there has to be something there for me to hold on to. Even with such in depth into the characters' thoughts and feelings, they still felt surface level (probably because they were surface level people) and I found the triplets so selfish and unlikeable that once I knew the story was going to follow them to college I had to put it down. Although the writing had a humorous and somewhat snarky and gossipy tone, I thought the story of the family itself so incredibly sad and for events that happened in our country the week it was released, it was not the right time to read this story.

Thank you to the publisher and to Netgalley for the eArc. All views expressed are my own.

I really enjoyed this saga of the Oppenheimer family, filled with sly humor and intrigue. It takes a bit to get going, but my patience was definitely rewarded as the novel unfolded. This is a perfect novel to read over a long summer weekend -- you won't be able to put it down!

Thank you to NetGalley and Celadon for an advance review copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

How do you follow up a hit novel? Jean Hanff Korelitz is no stranger to success. She's on the heels of last year's hit book The Plot and an HBO miniseries based on her novel You Should Have Known. I was eager to read whatever she came up with next, and I was lucky that her publisher sent me a copy of her latest novel The Latecomer. Hanff Korelitz didn't write another thriller this time. She's gone about as far in the opposite direction as you could possibly go, electing to write a searing family drama that sprawls multiple generations. Having not read a synopsis before diving in, I was caught a bit off guard by the genre and content, but I pressed on nonetheless.

The Oppenheimer family of New York is one of those wealthy established clans representing society's pinnacle during the 1970s. Like other prominent Jewish families of the time, they have found the perfect balance between running a family-owned business and socializing with others in their class. This generation aspires to leave their children better off than they are, and the Oppenheimer family is doing just that. Their son Salo is primed to take over everything and ensure a proper future for the Oppenheimer name.

Salo Oppenheimer's ascent to being the head of the family saw the young man carve his own path. He married Johanna, but instead of buying a home in Manhattan, moved to the neighborhood of Brooklyn Heights. While maintaining the family business, Salo grew fascinated with collecting "outsider art". As this hobby flourished, he eventually purchased a warehouse in Brooklyn to house his collection.

With her husband spending much of his free time away from the home, young Johanna Oppenheimer longed for the companionship that comes with a family. There was only one problem. Johanna was unable to conceive a child. Desperate to have children of her own, Johanna turned to the relatively new practice of in-vitro fertilization. Three eggs were used with a fourth frozen away as a last-ditch effort should she be unable to carry the child herself. To both the Oppenheimer's and their doctor's surprise, the process was a huge success with each of the three eggs successfully coming to term.

The three Oppenheimer children were siblings in name and blood only. Harrison, Lewyn, and Sally really couldn't have been more different if they tried. As they grew into adulthood, Johanna saw her dream of one big happy family drifting further and further away. Her husband continued to spend his time with his art, and the children, now destined for college, took up their own interests away from each other. In a desperate attempt for one final shot at a family, Johanna decided to use that final forgotten egg to have a fourth child. This 'latecomer' would be born into a fragmented family and be burdened with the duty to try and bring them each together.

I was blinded by my own expectations when I started reading this book. I couldn't help but compare this quiet family drama with the fast-paced thriller that the author presented only last year. So let's get this out of the way. The Latecomer is a vastly different novel from The Plot. As I slowly overcame those expectations and allowed myself to be enveloped by the time, place, and characters that Hanff Korelitz conjured, I began to appreciate the depth of the novel I was reading. This is a multigenerational family drama with plenty of dry humor and social commentary peppered in. At nearly 500 pages, Hanff Korelitz gives herself ample room to explore themes on family, marriage, race, sexuality, religion, and politics. While I found each of these elements worthy of the time devoted to them, I don't feel that there was a cohesive narrative thread tying them all together. This resulted in an ending that to me didn't exactly deliver on everything that came before it. That being said, I was so invested in the entire saga of the Oppenheimer family that I just had to see it all the way through. The Latecomer is a daring character study from a prominent author that will likely pay off in different ways depending on your tastes and the expectations you place upon it.

The Latecomer is full of family drama and tragedy. The characters are complex and the family is dysfunctional. I enjoyed this book from beginning to end. Definitely a must read.

I’m going to be honest, this one is a slow burn. I actually walked away for a bit and came back. BUT I finally got wrapped up in it, and the last 25% or so, when everything was coming together, I couldn’t put it down.

I’ve talked a lot here about how character driven stories are tough for me. This is a great example of a very character driven build-up that eventually goes somewhere plot-wise, and it worked for me!

This book made me think about how different siblings can be. It’s centered around a set of triplets who could not be more different from one another, and really have no desire to be forced into relationships with each other. It really is wild that the same people can produce such a wide variety of personalities. You only hope as a mother that those different personalities in your children can find some common ground, love and respect.

Read this if:
- you don’t mind a slow burn
- you don’t mind a larger time commitment
- you love stories about family drama and secrets
- you love solid character development and growth
- you love an unexpected hero

By the way, after reading this book this cover is absolute perfection.

There is no lost love between the Oppenheimer triplets. The family is a dysfunctional mess until years later when the remaining egg from the earlier IVF treatment becomes the Latecomer. Is it now too late for Phoebe to save the family that has fallen apart? This book was long and drawn out with a cast of unlikable characters until Phoebe hits the scene. From there the book finally becomes more interesting, but introducing her after the 300 page mark was much too late to save the book!

A beautifully written slow burn family drama about the Oppenheimers, a rich and complicated New York Jewish family. This is a character driven story about a set of triplets who are not as close as their mother thinks they should be, and their parents' complex and complicated marriage. Underneath it all it's a story about the invisible threads that connect us.

Jean Hanff Korelitz takes us on a literary journey about family, identity, art, human connections and lack thereof but most of all she makes the Oppenheimers come alive from the pages of her book. Each one of them showcased in the totality of their imperfections. Salo carries the weight of a tragedy that he caused as a young man. Johanna's love for her husband is only outweighed by her desire for children. Except despite her valiant efforts her triplets Harrison, Lewyn & Sally can't seem to connect in the way their mother keeps hoping for. And Salo seems to be more drawn to his art collection than his family.

I loved the way the story was written and I loved the way layers were peeled very gradually. Though the first half of the book is pretty slow, it does allow us to really understand each one of the characters and motivations behind their actions and decisions. I particularly enjoyed how it all came together in the end. This is by no means a light, beach read but definitely worth picking up for fans of well written contemporary fiction.

My gratitude to Celadon Books and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Thank you to both #NetGalley and Celadon Books for providing me an advance copy of Jean Hanff Korelitz’s latest general fiction novel, The Latecomer, in exchange for an honest review.

Reader, beware! If you are seeking to read #TheLatecomer based off the author’s last novel, #ThePlot, know that these are two entirely different genres. #TheLatecomer is a slow, family drama that is driven by its characters, whereas #ThePlot is a suspenseful thriller that isfor lack of a better termdriven by its plot. So long as you open this story with that thought in mind, then you should have a much more enjoyable experience than I did. I would also recommend being “in the right mood” to read this one because the material is heavy.

This book was long, not just in pages, but in ridiculous words. The author bored this reader a few times with her out of the way type of writing. There was no need to use 10 words when 2 would do. I had a hard time getting into the book and even when I thought it was getting better, it would slow way down again.
The writing wasn't smooth, the plot didn't flow and this reader had to put it down a few times to read something else because they couldn't get through it. I wanted to love it, but for me it was a let down. This book is nothing like the author's first book and was disappointing to this reader.
Be prepared when you pick this one up that it is going to take the reader awhile to get into and to get through.

Salo Oppenheimer and Johanna meet in the most unlikely of circumstances, but manage to form a relationship, then a marriage. While Johanna falls in love first with a fabulous Brooklyn house, then with the idea of motherhood, Salo remains devoted to his own true love—art collecting.

While Johanna maintains the illusion/delusion that they have a happy family life with their triplets (who barely tolerate one another), Salo finds someone else to love. And Johanna unfreezes their frozen embryo and finds a surrogate.

Ostensibly a novel about this last child, the eponymous latecomer, this is really a family saga and a story about New York City’s transformation. Salo is impenetrable and seemingly uncaring, while Johanna cares too much. Salo is strangely reminiscent of Tom Buchanan—oblivious to those who destroys. THE LATECOMER’s characters will stay with you long after you finish the story, with the secondary characters far more compelling and sympathetic than the protagonists, #TheLatecomer #NetGalley

As I begin writing this review, the almost long lost memory of me about to toss The Latecomer to the side surfaces, desperately needing me to tell you that if after nearly a third of the way (or less, possibly less) you are bored by Salo, who has become almost catatonic by several abstract art pieces, and Joanna, whose obsession with having children dominates her entire being, hang on because Jean Hanff Korelitz’ The Latecomer becomes so much more.

Joanna’s obsession ultimately produces triplets, Harrison, Sally, and Lewyn, whose reaction and relationship to each other epitomizes being produced in a petri dish (or a Peach Tree Dish). They are coldly clinical with each other, “recoiling” from physical or emotional contact with each other and sometimes with humanity on the whole. Although, it must be said, Lewyn is far the most receptive, but even he has difficulty with human relationships.

The nearby Brooklyn school they attend, called Walden–probably because it imbues pastoral idealism–seems to teach all manner of things, except the ones that might be necessary for later academia. Harrison determines early that he’s smarter than his siblings, classmates, and teachers at this school. Sally and Lewyn are more easy-going about their school achievements on the whole. Walden is the type of establishment that gives medals for participating so that everyone feels equal.

Later, Sally and Lewyn both end up at their father’s alma mater, Cornell, while Harrison attends a two year college, not be mistaken for a junior college, in which thought, learning, and manual labor are expected and encouraged. There he meets a young man, Eli Absalom Stone whose earlier book, Harrison has already devoured. Harrison knows that Eli is already an intellectual giant and he wants nothing more than to be befriended by him.

From here there are love interests, familial upheaval, and an amazing beach scene that changes everything and paves the way for the final section of the novel devoted to Phoebe, the so-called latecomer who is the fated fourth egg, stored away until her birth sixteen years after her siblings. Somehow Phoebe embodies the best of all of them and is the most obviously likable, not that that matters because this really is a novel built upon interesting and rich characters.

After that China-boat-slow beginning, The Latecomer became a novel I didn’t want to put down. The plots twists, the layered characters, the writing, all of these were like the richest, most palate-worthy wine you could imagine and savor. I was fascinated by the excursions these characters took mentally, and sometimes physically, their paths to becoming self-aware or simply functioning.

I was also very appreciative that Jean Hanff Korelitz treated these characters to a good ending, and the reader too, for that matter. That made me happy.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

*received for free from netgalley for honest review* Very different book. can easily say i have never read something like this, unsure how i feel about the book itself other than it was very long. May have made a good series but overall pretty good, would not have read this if i hadn't gotten it for free however.

Not sure I can even describe this one appropriately but it is a sweeping, intergenerational story of 3 triplets and their much later born sister. The book spans over 40 years and each sibling has their own issues and their own convoluted and captivating story. There is so much to unpack with this one from religion to politics to art history to family dynamics. With so much detail throughout, I cannot even begin to imagine how much research went into this book. It was long and dense but the way the storylines were intertwined, it completely sucked me in. And such a satisfying ending!

The Latecomer is a departure for Jean Hanff Korelitz and it is a SLOW slow burn. You meet a family of characters and not much happens for a lot of this book as tensions very slowly build. Do not expect another "The Plot". That being said, I'm so glad I read this. I fell in love with the characters, flaws and all, and was deeply invested by the end.

The Latecomer was a very interesting story about triplets, their much younger sister, and their lives. By the time the book ended, I really didn't want it to end. I was extremely interested in Ephraim, Stella, and Phoebe most of all.

I will say that the first part of the book dragged badly. I think an editor with a bit of a heavier hand might have improved upon that, BUT once the triplets arrived at their colleges, the pace began to pick up and the story got increasingly interesting. So if you plan to read this, bear with the first bit - it pays off well in the end.

Then, once Phoebe became old enough to shake things up, she really turned the heat up in this book. I wanted the story to continue once Phoebe took center stage and brought Ephraim into their lives.

Phoebe was absolutely the best character, in my opinion. I loved her and wondered several times how the triplets' lives would have been different had Phoebe been born when they were or if she'd been one of the triplets.

I would definitely recommend The Latecomer to people who enjoy good family dramas, character studies, and/or literary fiction. 4.5 stars rounded to 5.

Thank you to Netgalley, the author, and publisher for an ARC at my request. All thoughts are my own.