For me, this book is a 2.75 out of 5. It is a multilinear story, switching back and forth between 1969 & 2018, following the story of a daughter (2018) and her father as a young man (1969). It is about political turbulence, allowing the hard feelings to be felt, being honest with oneself, and finding meaning in the bigger picture. Silverman has a wonderful understanding of life's core truth’s, and is able to eloquently put them into words. The bones of this story are so good, however, I think the execution was extremely lacking. The first 50% of this book was incredibly forgettable and quite frankly, wasteful. All of the main characters weren’t loathsome, but not exactly likable either. The second half of the book I felt things picked up. I was able to become more attached to the story, and I felt a plot really start to develop. However, just as quickly as it had picked up, it slowed down. The book ended incredibly abruptly and left MANY loose ends. I’m typically all for an abrupt ending, as that is so often how our real stories tend to end, however, I can’t help but feel certain details and plot ideas were introduced just to keep the reader entertained. There was SO MUCH good material in this novel, and I feel like the author did a disservice to this wonderful story by watering it down so heavily. There are so many things I’d like to have read more about- Charles’ father’s and how he knew about Luc, and consequently, was Luc’s story truthful? The relationship between Minnow and her father, Minnow’s own feelings after the riot, and how she felt about speaking with her mother. There was a lot given, however, a lot that felt unnecessary, especially because the story was left with so many loose ends irrelevant to the story itself.

Overall, the book felt a bit unorganized. Creative idea, unfortunate execution. It wasn’t grueling to finish, but I’m not particularly inclined to read anything else by this author.

Minnow (short for Minerva) is a 38-year-old teacher who left for France after helping a student get an abortion and the ensuing scandal. There she falls in with a hot, 23-year-old gilet-jaune who has serious issues with his aristocratic father. In parallel to Minnow's story, we learn the backstory of her father, Christopher, a reserved and somewhat controlling man whose judgment had been Minnow's north star-- until her scandal.

A thoughtful but also fast-paced novel about idealism, political violence, and the difficulties of living a life of integrity. It's a sad book, IMO. Very visual, I liked being thrown into the French protests.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group for this advance reader copy, in exchange for an honest review. There’s Going to be Trouble is a story told in dual timelines, with main characters Minnow and Keen both finding themselves involved in political demonstrations, unexpected romances, and learning important lessons about life and themselves as a result.

Generally speaking, I enjoyed this book! It took a bit of time for me to get into it but, I think that was just due to my own interests and tastes rather than the book itself. I did appreciate the social commentary shared by the author and the characters were what really made the book for me! The dual timelines and the parallels between the characters, despite the different political climates, also worked really well in my opinion and propelled the story forward.

Overall, I would recommend this book to contemporary fiction fans and those who enjoy political storylines!

thank you to netgalley and random house for the ARC!

really liked this, and i’m inclined to check out the author’s other works now! really intelligent dialogue and scene-crafting + the romance element is balanced well with the primary themes and um, tell me why i started squealing like i was reading a romcom! french men just hit different idk

the political ideas at play here, and notions of how to respond to them on an individual and global level, are so so relevant and rarely put into fiction, at least in such an accessible manner. definitely a book that we young people need to read! i personally, am moved

my main critique is that i needed this to be twice as long. which, i know, i know, undermines the theme of history still being written, but i want to know what happened to everyone !!

”’Love is easier than respect. And it means less.’” is a crazy line btw, in response to your father saying “i love you.” like actual bars

Thank you for sharing this title!

I am going to be completely honest-- I chose this for the cover and for the title. I had zero idea at all what the story was going to be about.

Essentially it is two timelines, 2018 Paris during a period of civil unrest (honestly, I was never fully clear on what they are protesting) and 1968 Harvard during a period of student demonstrations. Both protagonists, Minnow in Paris and Keen at Harvard, find themselves in the unlikely center of these demonstrations, pulled in by an unlikely romance which challenges how they view the world and causes them to learn about themselves.

Overall I was intrigued and enjoyed this~ I liked the Harvard storyline more, but I liked Minnow's backstory more. Some parts were slow in each storyline. Good social commentary about collective action vs. the state except its all white people (ostensibly) so I wonder how the author could have addressed that more?

Some of the commentary felt very relevant to today!

Thank you Netgalley for the e-arc! I am a person who knows extremely little about the Vietnam War and contemporary French politics so it's always fun when a book teaches you a little bit of something (while of course taking historical fiction with a grain of salt). I found the characters and the relationships engaging, though I think my interest in each 'timeline' switched several times while reading, but that's actually probably a good thing. I think a lot about 'revolution' and activism and the best ways to go about that, as I'm sure many people do, and this book explored those things in interesting ways without becoming pessimistic. The flow of information in the novel was really effective and I stayed invested the whole way through. I guess the book just lacked that je ne sais quoi, but overall I really enjoyed.

I thoroughly enjoyed this ARC, it was an enthralling tumble through two revolutions and an exploration of the internal battle one faces when trying to create lasting change. This book reminded me of something a professor once said "if you cannot make revolution, make love!"

In 1968 chemistry lab worker Keen is pulled into anti-war and other student demonstrations by an exuberant Olga. Their love affair will have consequences. Fifty years later in 1981, Minnow in Paris as a teacher gets caught up with anti government demonstrations against Macron's unpopular policies.

The two stories come together at the end of this literary novel about protests, youth demonstrations, and the question of how or whether they change anything they are against. by these protests.

I see this novel as about characters who change and grow and find meaning during those two turbulent times of demonstrations, rather than the significance of the demonstrations themselves. There are graphic descriptions, however, about the violence against the protestors by the police.

The pace is slow in most of the book and I had to keep reading to find the meaning and/or relevance of the characters' lives.

I didn't even know this was a subject I would be interested in but the parallel stories were told so well.

I really enjoyed this book up until the ending. Lots of action, generational trauma and family discord, as well as love and relationships. The author does a great job of describing things so you can see what’s happening as you read along. I don’t typically like novels that jump back and forth in time, so I struggled some with that. But this book kept me on the edge of my seat. However, the ending is abrupt and frustrating! Enough to make me kind of mad! That’s why I’m only giving it 3 stars.

I went into this arc almost completely blind. I liked the cover, quickly read the blurb and just jumped in.

I was not expecting to find beautiful and thoughtful writing. Sentences that made me stop reading just to give it more thought. I'm not one to annotate a book, but I found myself highlighting and sending quotes to my friends. It really touched me.

Not only is it a book that speaks to our generation, through this rage that consumes us all and only represents this hope that we have for our future, but it built meaningful relationships.

I do feel like the ending was rushed, so many questions left unanswered. Is Charles with Minerva just to take a stand to his father? What did Luc really do? Did Minerva reach out to her mother again?

Although I understood the link between Keen's story and Minerva's (other than them being father-daughter), I hoped it would be a bit clearer. Maybe have a bit more comparisons through the chapters.

I also wished that the big event that made Minerva move to Paris would be more controversial. Maybe that's the point? Maybe it helps getting the point accross? I don't know, that was a bit of a let down, and had to force myself to continue the book after.

Overall a great read that I recommend.

Thanks to the publisher for the e-galley! I gobbled this up, a novel that feels like a departure from Silverman's debut (for one, the scope!). I enjoyed this immensely, and can't wait to read whatever she does next.

Love Jen’s writing style but the subjects/plot just didn’t grab me enough to really get into this one. Felt kind of like Birnam Wood, which I just finished, and I didn’t want to jump back into that kind of thing… but I will probably pick it up when it comes out though and some time has passed.

This was a good book, told in two different time periods, you really get a sense of what was important to people during that time, and how similar those were. In 2018, Minnow is a teacher, she used to teach in a small town in the US, but was involved in an incident where she helped a female student, and although what she did was very minor, it blew up in her face and became a very public embarrassment, to her and her father. She accepts a position in Paris to escape from the spotlight. In 1968 Keen is a PhD student at Harvard, mostly he's trying to avoid being drafted and going to Vietnam. His time is consumed doing various experiments with other classmates until he meets Olya, an independent free spirit and falls hopelessly in love with her. The two timeline go back and forth, both building to a surprisingly similar conclusion. I really enjoyed this book, at points I just wanted to yell at the two characters to take a step back, and think of the consequences, of course they don't, there wouldn't be a story otherwise Overall very good and I would recommend. Thanks to #Netgalley and #Random House for the ARC.

The cover is so disjointed from the book so just addressing that from the start.

There are two POVs, one from Minnow in 2018 in France during the Macron protests and the other in the late 60s with her father against Vietnam and Dow chemicals, as a student. Keen (the dad) was written a lot better, but almost every character in this book is unlikeable. Unlikeable characters don't make for a bad book though. It's well written but could benefit from some better pacing.

2.5 stars rounded up.

I don’t know. This book was interesting to me but not intriguing. There were moments of it that I though to be very captivating but it dragged on too long. I think the book should have revealed the sort of connection Minnow had with her father in terms of the consequences of their “ activism” earlier. The whole book is spent waiting for what they have in common and it takes entirely too long for that to be revealed and a lot of the interlude in between felt uninspired and just boring. It wasn’t terrible though. Interesting premise but the execution was a little lackluster.

I adored Jen Silverman's WE PLAYED OURSELVES last year, so I was thrilled to dive into her newest THERE'S GOING TO BE TROUBLE. The book starts off so solid - I had to know what was going to happen next - but the momentum dies somewhere in the middle of the book and it left me a bit cold. The book is a story about protests, spanning from the 1960s at Harvard to 2018 in Paris. Telling the story of a father and daughter, and the rebelling that brings them together in unexpected ways, I thought the plot was sweet but the telling a bit lacking.

I can't deny that the book also feels extremely timely, and for that I am grateful. The rebellious, pacifist liberal in me reveled in the lefty ideologies the characters defend with such fierceness. But I still wanted the plot to move faster because there is a lot of mystery, and heartbreak, and I found myself just speeding through to find out what happens and not enjoying the journey.

Thank you to the publisher, Random House, and Netgalley for providing me with an early copy of this book in exchange for my unbiased review.

I really enjoy the juxtaposing of two very different, yet very similar movements. The book fell flat at some parts and didn't always hold my interest. There were a few moments that had me really engrossed, but everything in-between was hard to stay engaged with.

I do wish the 2018 storyline hadn't ended when it did, as I would have liked to see the fallout from the violence.

Genre: Historical/Political Fiction
Publisher: Random House
Pub. Date: April 9, 2024

Unless the intent is to catch the reader’s attention, it is unclear why the book’s cover image is a naked woman lying on her side, implying erotica. Combined with the cover, even the book’s title of “There’s Going to Be Trouble” can suggest sexuality. But this book does not contain any eroticism. Yes, you will read about two fixated love affairs during different decades—however, the narrative centers on political upheaval in the 1960s and 1980s.

In 1968, Keen is avoiding the Vietnam draft by pursuing a Ph.D. at Harvard. Unexpectedly, he experiences an intense, one-sided love affair with Olya. She is a college-aged, ferocious political community activist. While Keen is not interested in politics, he agrees to attend Olya’s latest political demonstration, which will be far more violent than usual and has a fatal outcome.

In 2018, 42-year-old Minnow (Minerva) lost her teaching position due to a questionable teaching choice she made with a student. This led to a scandal and press harassment of her and her father, Christopher. To avoid the unfavorable press in the States, she gets a teaching position in Paris. Here, she runs into an intriguing young man with left-radical views. She becomes smitten with him. For his sake, Minnow, too, becomes involved in a deadly demonstration for a cause she does not support. There is another connection between the two timelines other than romantic relationships and demonstrations. I would be giving away the ending if I told you.

Minnow, Keen, and Olya are egotistical individuals who don’t care about the people they endanger. Having all-unlikable protagonists can work in a novel, but not in this one since the plot occasionally fails to hold one’s attention. Silverman does a good job describing the 2018 real-life turbulent Macron protests. She does not do the same for the student revolts in her narrative. She continuously presents the reader with lethal revolutionary scenarios. Both timelines began to read the same. I started skimming, which is never a positive indication of a good tale.

At the novel’s end, the author creates suspense, which lures me back into the story. Silverman’s quick transitions between years with brief glances at the characters’ situations create a strong tension. This is a hard book to review. After skimming out of boredom, I became anxious about the plot’s outcomes. Additionally, I enjoyed Silverman’s descriptive writing, that effectively conveys the rage of the demonstrators followed by police brutality. Still, this novel was not for me. You may enjoy this one more than I did if you are keen on reading about non-peaceful political movements.

Thank you Net Galley and the publisher for an ARC of this book for an honest review.
Minnow wants to make her father proud so she has always been quiet and a respectful teacher until she decides to help a student. This turns out to be a major problem. She flees to Paris and is caught up in a protest. This gets a little more political for me. It’s well written by this author but the protests I just couldn’t get through.