Cover Image: My Last Innocent Year

My Last Innocent Year

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Member Reviews

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Henry Holt & Co for the eARC of this in exchange for my honest review!

I really enjoyed this coming-of-age novel. There isn't anything extraordinary or necessarily new about the story but it was familiar, felt authentic and was so relatable. I really enjoyed the way the author explored Judaism while telling the story. The writing was well done and felt more like a memoir. I would definitely recommend giving this one a read.

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This book was immaculate! I loved the lyrical writing, vulnerable story line and realistic characters. I could feel the characters pain and joy throughout the story and I couldn't put it down. I loved the 90s New Hampshire setting and it totally engulfed me into the environment they were in.

There are definitely some TWs to consider, but I think this story is a very important one to read. I related so much to Isabel and appreciated her inner thoughts. She was written so beautifully and raw and is a character I won't be forgetting any time soon.

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This book was really good. It is a deep novel about a girl with many issues that falls hard in love with one of her professors. She has an affair for several months and is deeply in love with him. She lost her Mom at an early age and her Dad is doing his best. She finds out that her Dad took out a student loan without discussing the situation with her. She is looking all over for true love. She eventually graduates moves on but has a baby and then becomes divorced. This book deals with lots of issues in today’s society. A great book for discussion at a book club.

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This was perfectly well-constructed commercial fiction, a coming-of-age novel about an impressionable young Jewish woman from the Lower East Side in her final year in a woodsy and WASPy New Hampshire college that closely resembles Dartmouth. Set in 1998, the year Bill Clinton was impeached in the aftermath of L'affaire Lewinsky, Isabel Rosen has a nonconsensual encounter with a classmate, and an illicit affair with her married writing professor, and learns Valuable Life Lessons before graduation. But I found this emotionally uninvolving, especially given the intensity and delicacy of the subject matter, and the prose to be belabored and pedestrian.

<i>Thanks to Henry Holt and Co. and Netgalley for giving me an ARC, in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.</i>

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Make sure to check all the trigger warnings before reading this novel as it hits a lot of heavy topics. That being said, I loved this novel. Packed a punch in all the right ways and the MC was completely believable. I didn’t scream at her choices or think she was being illogical at all. She behaved how i imagine someone would behave after experiencing that kind of trauma. Beautiful and chilling story.

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I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.

REVIEW TO FOLLOW.

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It’s Isabel’s senior year at Wilder College in New Hampshire, and her life is about to be upended after a murky sexual encounter in the dorms with a friend. Left reeling and uncertain, Isabel pulls away from friends but finds comfort in her married professor who sees her the way no one else does and believes in her dream of being a writer. Isabel begins an affair with her professor that will stay with her for the rest of her life. That said, the plot left me wanting more! The writing— while beautiful— was anecdotal at times, rather than propelling the story about an in appropriate affair and power dynamic. It shifted from present day to reflecting back on the past at times, and sad as the story was it didn’t leave me gutted as I had expected. This story touched upon many emotional and serious situations including eating disorders, consent, mental health, cheating, and even just the basic need for belonging and the struggle to find your own way while growing up. That said, there was a lot of filler in between that left me wanting more, and I wished there was more about the emotions at play between Isabel and Connelly (while it was happening) (we can clearly see by the end of the novel that the affair stuck with her). This was somewhat plodding and not as dark or sad as I expected based on the blurb, but I would still be interested to read more from this author.

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I'm always a big fan of a coming-of-age novel set against a school backdrop. Something about academia, especially the darker side, the haves and the have nots, the exploration of elitism, is just super appealing to me. I enjoyed My Last Innocent Year, though I wish it were a bit...deeper? on the whole. It felt like it could go a bit further, get a bit darker, like there were times when Florin was holding back. This was a novel that I liked, but didn't love. I don't think it will be my first recommendation for something in this subgenre, but it's worth a read if these books are very much your speed.

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Thanks #netgalley for this book in exchange for an honest review. This book started a little slow for me. I kept reading and then was disappointed with the entire section about the professor. I can't say that I liked this book as it seemed predictable and unoriginal. I can't really say I didn't like it since something kept me interested enough to read the entire book.

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After receiving the arc from netgalley, I dived straight into this and could not put it down. I am shocked this is the authors debut novel of a written so beautifully. I felt as if I were back in the 90s experiencing life and those turbulent emotions all over again. It's exciting and emotional and heartbreaking all at the same time

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I was not emotionally or mentally prepared for this book. It broke me in two which means it was well written and well intended. I am grateful to Daisy Alpert Florin for this book.

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A coming of age novel about Isabel navigating her last semester as a literary major while beginning the transition to adulthood. Much of the novel is spent on her relationship with her writing professor who uses his position of power to begin a secret sexual relationship. Isabel is haunted by this relationship well into her adult life.

The setting of this novel is winter in New Hampshire, mostly February/March those dreary months where you're stuck between winter and spring. This lends a sort of dark academia theme to the novel which I always thought is ironic that these dark/heavy theme academia books are always set in New England. I live in NH and currently experiencing the fickle weather of March so I particularly leaned into those feelings.

I enjoyed learning more about Jewish and college life in the late 90s with the political under current in the background.

There's a lot happening in this novel which is typical in a college setting. Isabel deals with her own sexuality, grieving the lose of her mother, and transitioning into adulthood. Around her, others are dealing with mental health, domestic violence.

I really enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more by the author.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher.

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My Last Innocent Year reads like a memoir as Isabel remembers events from her senior year at Wilder, a private (fictional) college in New Hampshire in the late 90s. Cleverly woven into the story is the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, and we see the in-time reactions of the college students to the hearings as well as a more mature Isabel's musings on the events with 25+ years of hindsight.

She brings that same hindsight and compassion to her recollections of her senior year, where she had a very ambiguous sexual encounter with a classmate and later a relationship with a professor that was inappropriate for so many reasons while seeming inevitable. The prose is straightforward yet lyrical, the honesty in the writing pulled me in.

The older Isabel treats her younger self with understanding and tenderness. It feels like she's giving her younger self a warm hug. Not judgemental, not harsh, some regret.

The book resonates. Isabel's recollections mirror those of many who've waded through contradictory, ambivalent relationships in their college-age years. This is a brave, relatable story.

My thanks to NetGalley and Henry Holt & Company Publishing for the ARC.

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I love a good campus novel and this did not disappoint - a perfect blend of drama and substance. Romance and personal growth. Independence and not moving an inch without consulting with roommates. College!

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I was really drawn to this cover, it is so beautiful! Set in a New England College, Isabel has suffered from a non consensual event during winter break which leads her to an affair with a married man. Lots of dark themes throughout the book.

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After a murky sexual encounter with a classmate has campus-wide repercussions, Isabel's senior year at the elite Wilder College becomes even further complicated by an affair with a married professor. I think I'm the target audience for this book, and it was still a miss for me. The Clinton-Lewinsky scandal lurks in the background of this campus novel, but the prose veers too often into soft porn for any social critique to be effectively incisive. I also felt that the characters really did bring all the misfortune upon themselves, which obscures what I understood to be the author's project.

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While in some ways I feel like this is a book I've already read, this is story that needs to be told over...and over... and over again. Florin does it in her own unique ways and this is a very impressive debut. Women, take care while reading.

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*Thank you Henry Holt & Company and Netgalley for the copy of this book for review*

Set during the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, Isabel is a senior at Wilder College and navigating the transition into adulthood. After an unpleasant sexual encounter, her outlook on relationships are drastically changed. Soon she encounters her new professor and so begins their affair.

I definitely got "My Dark Vanessa" vibes, however, this book failed to grip me emotionally. While I sort of understanding the author's choice of ambiguity, the "nonconsensual" encounter that is the turning point for Isabel was weak - even she believes that the encounter was consensual but she just didn't enjoy the experience with the person. As for the affair with her older professor, it happened way later in the book and did not have the impact I expected. Overall, I was a bit disappointed since I expected a more emotional read considering the main topics addressed. However, I did enjoy the aspect of the main character's experience as a poor Jewish girl in college among wealthy peers.

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Set in 1998 as this story begins, this is the story of a young woman, Isabel that takes place, for the most part, at Wilder College in New Hampshire.

’It’s hard to say how I ended up in Zev Neman’s dorm room the night before winter break. It was a bitter night—December in New Hampshire—and on our way back from the library we’d been arguing…’

Their difference of opinions leads to him inviting her to his room, and her not saying ‘no’.

Isabel’s childhood was marred by the loss of her mother when she was young, and that seems to lead to her naïveté as to how to navigate the situation.

’So I guess that’s how I ended up in Zav Neman’s room: he invited me and I didn’t say no.’

Once inside his room, she takes in the view from the window, the bed that’s been made, the room clean. Nothing like the other boys rooms she’d been to in the last almost four years since she’d been at Wilder.

’I wanted to skip this part, the part where you wondered when the thing you’d come to a boy’s bedroom to do would start happening, when you could stop making small talk that only revealed all the ways this boy, any boy, would never understand you. To pass beyond language straight into touch.’

’I’d wandered into this encounter the way you wander into a dark room: with one hand outstretched, feeling your way as you go, unable to see what’s on the walls or how exactly you might get out.’

From her childhood, she’s been drawn to art, to the artistic lifestyle. Her mother had been an artist. She has wanted to be a writer since she was very young, and is taking a writing seminar by R.H. Connelly. Connelly’s debut book was greeted with enthusiasm, but he now seems to have left writing behind for teaching, and writing for the newspaper. His marriage is shakey, but she is smitten, imagining a future with this man who has a wife and child.

This is a story that weaves in and out of lives, the tangled webs of lies and false promises, words unsaid, deceit and broken hearts, but it is also a story of hope after heartbreak, and hope for the future. She comes to realize that what she once believed in as real was just fairy dust, a fantasy.


Published: 14 Feb 2023


Many thanks for the ARC provided by Henry Holt & Company / Henry Holt and Co.

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- thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an arc to review!

- tw/ rape

- this is a hard dnf. as a survivor of sexual assault, reading on page descriptions of rape always put me off. you don’t have to convey the act itself in detail, since assault is such a tender issue to discuss. you can just fade to black or hint at it, and it’ll still have the horror of what you want to convey. the details of the rapists genitals and the way he chose to assault the main character made me repulsed, and this was on the first few pages. it was not necessary to delve into this much detail when you first open the book. and the fact that there’s a student teacher relationship later on puts me off further. this was not for me. authors, please just don’t write graphic rape scenes. you don’t need it. the horror of the act can speak for itself in a few implicit words.

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