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MY LAST INNOCENT YEAR

by Daisy Alpert Florin ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 14, 2023

A brilliantly crafted campus novel for the generation before #MeToo.

A young woman navigates sex and power at an elite New England college in the late 1990s in Florin’s debut.

Isabel Rosen, the daughter of an artist mother and a father who owns a Lower East Side appetizing store, is hardly the typical student at New Hampshire’s Wilder College (presumably based on Dartmouth). During her senior year, as she works on a thesis on Edith Wharton and tries to enjoy her last moments at the college that—despite everything—she loves, she has sexual encounters with two different men that will forever shape her memories of the time. One is a slightly older peer, a former soldier whose Israeli bravado is thoughtfully juxtaposed against her Ashkenazi ambivalence; the other is the handsome creative writing professor who takes an interest in her work. Set against the backdrop of President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky, Isabel’s experiences teach her the hard way about the complex power dynamics in sexual relationships. Isabel’s sex life is private and secretive, while the president’s was much publicized; soon enough, however, Isabel learns that privacy doesn’t last long on a small college campus. Isabel’s intoxicating affair begins to unravel when drama ensues surrounding the family of the Wilder English department chair. Florin’s prose is gorgeous and enthralling, and her imagistic portrayal of New England campus life—from divey college town bars to Winter Carnival to English department parties to skinny-dipping in the river—is pitch-perfect. She also succeeds where many stories of dubious sexual consent fail: She avoids heavy-handed moralizing in favor of ambiguity, however uncomfortable. Even an odd final section, which spans years after Isabel graduates and detracts from the momentum of what would otherwise have been the final act, cannot dim the shine of this novel. Florin’s debut is not to be missed.

Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2023

ISBN: 978-1-250-85703-3

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Henry Holt

Review Posted Online: Nov. 15, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2022

LITERARY FICTION | GENERAL FICTION

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Awards & Accolades

Our Verdict

New York Times Bestseller

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 6, 2024

A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.

A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.

When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.

Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024

ISBN: 9781250178633

Page Count: 480

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023

FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | GENERAL FICTION | HISTORICAL FICTION

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SEEN & HEARD

by Elin Hilderbrand ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 11, 2024

Though Hilderbrand threatens to kill all our darlings with this last laugh, her acknowledgments say it’s just “for now.”

A stranger comes to town, and a beloved storyteller plays this creative-writing standby for all it’s worth.

Hilderbrand fans, a vast and devoted legion, will remember Blond Sharon, the notorious island gossip. In what is purportedly the last of the Nantucket novels, Blond Sharon decides to pursue her lifelong dream of fiction writing. In the collective opinion of the island—aka the “cobblestone telegraph”—she’s qualified. “Well, we think, she’s certainly demonstrated her keen interest in other people’s stories, the seedier and more salacious, the better.” Blond Sharon’s first assignment in her online creative writing class is to create a two-person character study, and Hilderbrand has her write up the two who arrive on the ferry in an opening scene of the book, using the same descriptors Hilderbrand has. Amusingly, the class is totally unimpressed. “‘I found it predictable,’ Willow said. ‘Like maybe Sharon used ChatGPT with the prompt “Write a character study about two women getting off the ferry, one prep and one punk.”’” Blond Sharon abandons these characters, but Hilderbrand thankfully does not. They are Kacy Kapenash, daughter of retiring police chief Ed Kapenash (the other swan song referred to by the title), and her new friend Coco Coyle, who has given up her bartending job in the Virgin Islands to become a “personal concierge” for the other strangers-who-have-come-to-town. These are the Richardsons, Bull and Leslee, a wild and wealthy couple who have purchased a $22 million beachfront property and plan to take Nantucket by storm. As the book opens, their house has burned down during an end-of-summer party on their yacht, and Coco is missing, feared both responsible for the fire and dead. Though it’s the last weekend of his tenure, Chief Ed refuses to let the incoming chief, Zara Washington, take this one over. The investigation goes forward in parallel with a review of the summer’s intrigues, love affairs, and festivities. Whatever else you can say about Leslee Richardson, she knows how to throw a party, and Hilderbrand is just the writer to design her invitations, menus, themes, playlists, and outfits. And that hot tub!

Pub Date: June 11, 2024

ISBN: 9780316258876

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: March 9, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024

FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | GENERAL FICTION

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The Age of Musings

My last innocent year.

Author: Daisy Alpert Florin

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Pub Date: February 14, 2023

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Disclaimer: This review is based on an ARC received from NetGalley and Henry Holt and Co. in exchange for an honest review

Review: Florin’s debut novel, “My Last Innocent Year,” unfolds like an indie movie, capturing a snapshot of Isabel’s tumultuous senior year at Wilder College amidst the backdrop of the late ’90s.

The narrative explores Isabel’s journey through themes of consent, personal identity, and the complexities of relationships, particularly her affair with a married professor. Florin’s writing style is fluid and rhythmic, akin to a comforting stream of consciousness that guides us through Isabel’s reflections on Jewish cultural dynamics and college life.

However, while the writing is engaging, the plot feels somewhat amorphous. The story lacks a cohesive narrative arc, resembling more a series of vignettes than a structured plot. This approach, though reflective of Isabel’s introspective nature, may leave readers wanting more depth and momentum in the storyline.

One of the novel’s strengths lies in its exploration of sensitive topics such as sexual assault and inappropriate relationships, yet it occasionally falls short in delivering the emotional impact expected from such themes. The affair with the professor, which is central to Isabel’s character development, feels underexplored given its late introduction in the narrative.

Moreover, the characters, while intriguing, often remain at arm’s length emotionally, preventing a deeper connection with their journeys. Isabel herself, despite navigating significant life events, sometimes comes across as detached, leaving some of the novel’s potentially powerful moments feeling muted. Most of the time I felt like I was an intruder looking in to a very personal time instead of being part part of the story.

Despite these critiques, “My Last Innocent Year” offers a nuanced portrayal of a young woman’s journey into adulthood, grappling with her past and shaping her future. Florin’s depiction of Isabel’s internal struggles and external challenges resonates with authenticity, providing insight into the complexities of identity formation and the impact of early-life experiences on personal growth.

For readers interested in introspective narratives and cultural exploration, this debut novel provides a thought-provoking glimpse into the uncertainties and revelations of young adulthood. While the unconventional storytelling style and pacing may not fully satisfy those seeking a tightly woven plot, “My Last Innocent Year” remains a compelling read that captures the essence of a pivotal moment in a young woman’s life with sensitivity and insight.

StarTribune

Review: 'my last innocent year,' by daisy alpert florin.

There have always been impressionable young people who fall for older men — teachers and other mentors — and there have always been older men who have taken advantage of these crushes. But rarely has their story been told as thoughtfully as in Daisy Alpert Florin's intelligent and sensuous debut novel, "My Last Innocent Year," a remarkable coming-of-age story that examines sexual politics, power and lust and the sometimes murky nature of romantic encounters.

Florin sets the seduction between Connelly, a professor, and Isabel, his student, on a college campus in New Hampshire during Isabel's senior year. It's the late 1990s and the drama of President Clinton's relationship with Monica Lewinsky is unfolding, a backdrop for the questions this novel poses: When is a sexual encounter rape? When is it consensual? Is it possible for there to be something in between? How does power affect relationships? And can power shift?

Isabel is ripe for the picking. She is beautiful but doesn't know it, brilliant but doesn't believe it, lonely and looking for affirmation. Affirmation comes in the form of Connelly, the washed-up (but brilliant and handsome) married adjunct professor who takes over her English writing workshop. Smoldering glances and praise of her talent and intelligence quickly combust into steamy afternoons on the slippery couch in Connelly's dark office.

It doesn't take much to woo her. "I just like to listen to you talk," Connelly tells her, and Isabel blushes. "It felt like the nicest thing anyone had ever said to me," she thinks.

The novel is narrated by present-day Isabel, now middle-aged and a successful author looking back on that time. It's an approach that provides perspective and allows the reader to understand that she has come through this safely, if not unscathed. She is OK and she was always going to be OK. "There was, I can see now, a kernel of self-preservation at my center, a belief in myself and my future," she writes. Oh, if only all impressionable young people had such a kernel.

The unfortunate final section, with contemporary Isabel trying to track down Connelly all these years later, serves no real purpose. But those confusing pages do not detract from the power of the rest of the narrative.

This book will be published on Valentine's Day, which seems both appropriate and ironic.

Laurie Hertzel is the Star Tribune's senior editor for books.

My Last Innocent Year

By: Daisy Alpert Florin.

Publisher: Henry Holt, 304 pages, $26.99.

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Submitting a book for review, write the editor, you are here:, my last innocent year.

About the Book

It’s 1998, and Isabel Rosen, the only daughter of a Lower East Side appetizing store owner, has one semester left at Wilder College, a prestigious school in New Hampshire. Desperate to shed her working-class roots and still mourning the death of her mother four years earlier, Isabel has always felt like an outsider at Wilder but now, in her final semester, she believes she has found her place --- until a nonconsensual sexual encounter with one of the only other Jewish students on campus leaves her reeling.

Enter R. H. Connelly, a once-famous poet and Isabel’s writing professor, a man with secrets of his own. Connelly makes Isabel feel seen, beautiful, talented: the woman she longs to become. His belief in her ignites a belief in herself, and the two begin an affair that shakes the foundation of who Isabel thinks she is, for better and worse. As the lives of the adults around her slowly come apart, Isabel discovers that the line between youth and adulthood is less defined than she thought.

A coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal, Daisy Alpert Florin's MY LAST INNOCENT YEAR is a timely and wise portrait of a young woman learning to trust her voice and move toward independence while recognizing the beauty and grit of where she came from.

My Last Innocent Year by Daisy Alpert Florin

Publication Date: February 13, 2024
Genres: Fiction
Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Holt Paperbacks
ISBN-10: 1250857058
ISBN-13: 9781250857057

Review | ‘My Last Innocent Year’ by Daisy Alpert Florin

★★★★☆ My Last Innocent Year by Daisy Alpert Florin Published on February 14, 2023 by Henry Holt and Company Genres: Adult fiction, contemporary, historical fiction, coming-of-age “At twenty-two, I still believed adults did things because they made sense, that they had information I did not have, by virtue of being adults. I was beginning to…

My Last Innocent Year by Daisy Alpert Florin Published on February 14, 2023 by Henry Holt and Company Genres: Adult fiction, contemporary, historical fiction, coming-of-age

“ at twenty-two, i still believed adults did things because they made sense, that they had information i did not have, by virtue of being adults. i was beginning to think this might not always be the case. i would soon come to understand that adulthood was exactly this: the constant upending of everything you believed when you were young. ”.

It’s the winter of 1998 and Isabel Rosen has one semester left at Wilder College, a prestigious school in New Hampshire with a wealthy, elite student body and the sort of picturesque buildings college brochures were invented to capture. The only daughter of a Lower East Side appetizing store owner, Isabel has always felt out of place at Wilder, and the death of her mother shortly before she arrived on campus left her feeling unmoored in a way that’s proven hard to shake. Now, right as she’s coming to believe she’s finally found her place, the fallout from a nonconsensual sexual encounter with one of the only other Jewish students on campus leaves Isabel reeling.

Enter R.H. Connelly: a once-famous poet and Isabel’s married writing professor, a man with secrets of his own. Connelly makes Isabel feel seen, beautiful, talented; the woman she longs to become. His belief in her ignites a belief in herself. The two begin an affair that shakes the foundation of who Isabel thinks she is, for better and worse.

Set against the backdrop of the Clinton and Lewinsky scandal, My Last Innocent Year is a coming-of-age story about a young woman on the brink of sexual and artistic awakening, navigating her way toward independence while recognizing the power, beauty and grit of where she came from. Timely and wise, it reckons with the complexities of consent, what it means to be an adult, and whether or not we can ever outrun our bad decisions.

My Thoughts

My Last Innocent Year is part of a series of novels that have sprung up in the age of #MeToo and Time’s Up, including Kate Elizabeth Russell’s My Dark Vanessa and Bronwyn Fischer’s The Adult , that follow a young woman of college age who finds themselves being taken advantage of by an authority figure of power, usually a teacher in these narratives. My Dark Vanessa in particular generated a significant amount of buzz when it was published in 2020, and while it was worth the read, the operative word there was “dark,” going places that left the reader a little disturbed after finishing. My Last Innocent Year was much easier to read, and was superbly written for a debut novel. Daisy Alpert Florin managed to capture perfectly the feeling of being young and in college, studying what you’re passionate about for the first time. Part of you feels like you’re on top of the world for having worked so hard and being so close to finishing a degree. The other part of you is always waiting for the other shoe to drop, the ugly realities of “adult life” waiting in the wings to slap you in the face. Florin’s protagonist is emblematic of all these anxieties of early adulthood. A common criticism for the novel thus far has been that it hasn’t necessarily added anything new to the narrative surrounding the college student being sexually and emotionally manipulated by someone older and in a position of power. It’s true, nothing happens that you wouldn’t necessarily expect, but it’s still a impactful portrayal of the consequences of adult decisions. My Last Innocent Year also touches on issues of consent, told at a time when Monica Lewinsky was being slut-shamed by the entire world. It’s subsequently interesting to see just how far we (haven’t) come since 1998 in terms of normalizing the ideas of power and consent.

“ I loved everything about the stacks, the musty smell of glue and paper, the way you were only permitted to enter after showing your student ID, as though the collection of books were an important dignitary to be protected at all costs … I loved the push and pull of the big and small, the way each writer burrowed deep into his or her subject matter, no matter how obscure, and yet, taken together, the books here felt larger than the world. ”

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The Literary Edit

My Last Innocent Year by Daisy Alpert Florin

I was recommended Daisy Alpert Florin’s debut – My Innocent Year – by Joanna Rakoff, an author who I like to think of as my literary kindred spirit. Joanna took part in my Desert Island Books series a little over a year ago, and I’ve loved every single book she’s recommended thus far.

And so, when Joanna shared news of the soon-to-be-released My Innocent Year on her Instagram, I soon after contacted the publisher to ask for a proof. It was sent to my apartment in Bondi while I was back visiting family in the UK, and the day I returned I began reading it, knowing from the very first page that was exactly the sort of book I would love.

My Last Innocent Year Book Review

A thought-provoking and beautifully written coming-of-age campus novel, in My Innocent Year we meet Isabel Romen, a senior at Wilder College, who has a disconcerting sexual encounter with a fellow-classmate she once considered a friend. She then goes onto begin an affair with her enigmatic and married English professor, and we see Isabel as she attempts to navigate the fine line between girlhood and womanhood while her life slowly simmers with a sense of foreboding.

Beautifully written and utterly captivating, Florin does a wonderful job of capturing what it is to be a girl on the brink of womanhood, finding her feet in an adult world. A tale that explores themes of grief, loss, and consent, the narrative is beautifully ribboned with smouldering tension throughout.

A quiet, contemplative book that offers readers an intimate and perfectly depicted portrayal of one woman’s relationship with the many shades of consent, My Innocent Year is the crème de la crème of campus novels; and a compulsively readable coming-of-age that is both evocative and deeply nuanced.

My Last Innocent Year Summary

An incisive, deeply resonant debut novel about a non-consensual sexual encounter that propels one woman’s final semester at an elite New England college into controversy and chaos—and into an ill-advised affair with a married professor

It’s the winter of 1998 and Isabel Rosen has one semester left at Wilder College, a prestigious school in New Hampshire with a wealthy, elite student body and the sort of picturesque buildings college brochures were invented to capture. The only daughter of a Lower East Side appetizing store owner, Isabel has always felt out of place at Wilder, and the death of her mother shortly before she arrived on campus left her feeling unmoored in a way that’s proven hard to shake. Now, right as she’s coming to believe she’s finally found her place, the fallout from a non-consensual sexual encounter with one of the only other Jewish students on campus leaves Isabel reeling.

Daisy Alpert Florin Author Bio

Daisy Alpert Florin attended Dartmouth College and received graduate degrees from Columbia University and Bank Street Graduate School of Education. She is a recipient of the 2016 Kathryn Gurfein Writing Fellowship at Sarah Lawrence College and was a 2019–20 fellow in the BookEnds novel revision fellowship, where she worked with founding director Susan Scarf Merrell. A native New Yorker, Daisy lives in Connecticut with her family.

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Book Review: “My Last Innocent Year” — Too Unreliable?

By Daniel Gewertz

An unreliable narrator is a tough row to hoe for a fiction writer, but a narrator who doesn’t quite know what to think — that’s even harder ground to plow.

My Last Innocent Year by Daisy Alpert Florin. Henry Holt and Company, 290 pages.

In the end, this book’s final pages go way beyond the merely percolated: it scorches and burns. It is clear that men are not the book’s ideal target audience. But, despite enjoying much of this novel, I had to wonder if men were not meant to read My Last Innocent Year at all.

Chapter one sets up a sexual situation perfectly pitched for 2023. Here’s the first line: “It’s hard to say how I ended up in Zev Neman’s dorm room the night before winter break.” On a bitterly cold December night, English major Isabel Rosen leaves the library of Wilder College and starts chatting with a brashly opinionated fellow, an Israeli ex-soldier whom she’s known casually for over three years. (They had met originally at a Shabbat dinner at the school’s Hillel House.) Isabel has never socialized on purpose with Zev, but often ran into him on campus, engaging in brief, sometimes witty intellectual arguments — friendly enough banter, but not flirtatious. Outside his dormitory he casually asks her if she wants to come in. She shrugs noncommittally, yet enters the dorm.

In his room, Zev kisses and gropes Isabel. She’s nonplussed, but all she manages to say to discourage his advances is, “Could you maybe slow down a little?” Zev replies that he doesn’t think he can. After the hasty sex act is completed, they both chat amiably, wishing each other a good winter break. But Isabel leaves the encounter feeling shaken. Her friend and roommate — a wild feminist agitator named Debra — sees there is something seriously amiss with Isabel’s mood. When told of the sex act, she immediately sees it as rape. Isabel tells her sharply that it was not. Despite the disagreement, Isabel accompanies Debra back to Zev’s dorm floor, Debra with a spray-can of paint in hand. Debra then sprays the word “Rapist” all over Zev’s door. Isabel says nothing. Throughout the scene, Isabel seems baffled, more onlooker than participant … which is very close to how she reacted to the sex.

Though Isabel is both the main actor in this drama as well as our narrator, she refrains from sharing many of her thoughts with the reader in these early pages, which reflects the novelist’s decision to remain ambiguous about this rape/not-rape. It is plain that Isabel is a weak person who cannot say “NO!” to either Zev or Debra. The event is set up as central to the book, and yet it is, in the end, just a hot, tactically effective way to heat up a story that might otherwise have been lukewarm. As narrator, Isabel isn’t long on analysis. College life is well observed, though, from the milquetoast dean of students to the married English professors in the midst of a creepy divorce. The neurotically competitive creative writing class comes to life best. But so many of Isabel’s schoolmates are mentioned along the way that it’s hard to keep them straight; even Kelsey, her best friend, is vaguely defined. Only firebrand Debra stands out: a felonious feminist prankster prone to periods of steep highs and deep depressions.

Florin places most of the action in 1998, three years beyond her own Dartmouth graduation. Presumably this small time-shift was made so the author could use the Monica Lewinsky/Bill Clinton sex scandal as an occasional thematic tic. Yet the Lewinsky affair is dropped into the novel so seldom and so briefly that it lacks resonance. Ultimately, the maneuver seems like an awkward afterthought: a half-baked attempt at literary depth and societal scope. (For a while I thought a loose comparison was being set up between willful Debra and Linda Tripp, the conniving frenemy who decimated Monica’s life. No dice. Instead, we get, in the book’s final pages, a strained comparison between Monica and our narrator.) Other than Lewinskygate, the larger outside world makes no appearances. And men, including Clinton, are cast as the heavies.

So, what makes this novel worth reading? There are two substantial storylines in My Last Innocent Year that reach deeper emotions, and stay true to them. Beginning in chapter two, we see Isabel back home with her father Abe, the owner of Rosen’s Appetizing — the only Jewish non-meat deli left on Manhattan’s lower East Side. (Smoked white fish and salmon, bagels, and cream cheese are the specialties of an “appetizing store.”) Every detail of this Lower Manhattan story seemed so real, I Googled to see if there was a deli with the author’s maiden name in the lower East Side! (There wasn’t.)

Despite his local fame as the owner of a beloved Jewish establishment, Abe isn’t a religious Jew. The Rosens do celebrate Passover at relatives’ homes, but they tend to join the table of the more liberal family members because Abe and Isabel prefer jokes to prayers. Here’s another clue to the nontraditional bent of the Rosens: Isabel addresses her dad as Abe.

Her late mother was a devoted artist, an oil painter, who refused to ever help out in her husband’s store. Despite this arrangement, she was frustrated with her career and her marriage. When Isabel was still in high school her mother contracted cancer and died. “Never marry a man who doesn’t understand you,” was her deathbed advice. During this misery-ridden period of her mother’s decline, Isabel “acted out” by becoming a thief, stealing items and money while visiting the homes of her far richer girlfriends. This is a psychologically plausible turn of events, but Florin has Isabel stealing so much and so often that it stretches the bounds of logic when she gets away with it.

The other finely written segment of the book takes up Isabel’s obsession with her writing professor — a 40-year-old married man — and their subsequent clandestine affair. The quality of Florin’s writing rises sharply here. This is no mean feat, considering that the subject of love between a female student and a male teacher has become the province of hackneyed romance novels, on the one hand, and feminist polemics, on the other. Isabel’s narration captures the irrepressible essence of first love. (Her lack of guilt regarding her prof’s married status might echo her sense of entitlement about her teenage thievery. In both high school and college Isabel thinks of herself as a poor girl surrounded by the rich.)

Florin makes the furtive love affair more than a fanciful crush. The prose in these segments achieves the artful voice of reflective, sentiment-driven fiction. The professor, a reputable poet, makes Isabel believe in herself as a writer: we are led to believe that if it weren’t for his class, this book wouldn’t exist. The hunky prof is persuasively drawn, and the ego-bruising writing class scenes are also on target. When a fellow student, an ex-lover, derides Isabel as a teacher’s pet — and later accuses her of imagining herself the heroine of a Russian novel — the insults are not far off the mark, but the love and lust Florin dramatizes is persuasive.

But then, after all that good stuff, My Last Innocent Year begins to break down. There is a major plot development that involves another of Isabel’s English profs, this one so enraged by divorce that he becomes a child-stealing maniac on the lam. It’s a sharp turn toward pure melodrama, though it does motivate Isabel to finally exhibit courage and sense: an authentic coming-of-age moment.

Author Daisy Alpert Florin. Photo: Sylvie Rosokoff

An unreliable narrator is a tough row to hoe for a fiction writer, but a narrator who doesn’t quite know what to think — that’s even harder ground to plow. At points, Florin achieves such a likable voice that a more knowing perspective appears to be hovering. But that hope is lost in the last chapter, in which we are brought to the present. Instead of solidifying the story, it unravels the persona of Isabel Rosen. The adult Isabel tells us — in a rushed, detail-free manner — about a marriage to a college friend, a minor character of the novel, one Bo Benson, a rich boy who has made no impression upon the reader. They divorce a page later.

Of course, first-person narrators are not required to bring the reader up to the present. But if they do, the grownup narrator has to at least resemble the girl with whom we spent so much time. Florin blows the tale up: marriage, motherhood, and suburban adultery — all of it rushed through in cavalier fashion. The hot affair with a neighbor gets just one sentence: “I fucked him every morning for a year while our kids played…” These events are presented in such a summary series they might as well have been made as bullet points. And why is the novel called My Last Innocent Year ? In her senior year of college Isabel ruins the reputation of one male lout without meaning to, and has a hot affair with a married man without destroying his marriage. Does that count as innocent? Or does innocent simply refer to before #me too ?

It may be the case that Florin doesn’t want to risk alienating potential young female readers with any non-PC conclusions. So she remains safely ambiguous throughout, and then, in a few final pages, piles on dark beliefs that haven’t been properly led up to.

In her two pages of acknowledgments, Florin thanks 30 women and one man for helping the novel come to fruition. She is also grateful for fellowships devoted to revision. Perhaps it is a matter of too many cooks. Or is it market-savvy advice that led her to wrap things up as dourly as she has? It doesn’t solidify the character we have come to know. In the book’s final pages, Florin gives Isabel large literary success, including a runaway bestseller that was written as a lark. She has attained celebrity status. Fierce young feminists attend Isabel’s book readings attired in the costume of her super-powered heroine, leader of a pack of female killers who murder men who have “demeaned” them.

If you take the narrator at her word, My Last Innocent Year would be the novel Isabel wrote after that make-believe best-seller. Yet the book we have read explicitly states that its narrator did not believe she was raped and did not believe her professor lover did her evil. We never see her wavering in these understandings. Are we to suddenly feel that, at the end, she was an unreliable narrator? Which of the two clashing Isabels are we supposed to believe? The protagonist looks back at Monica Lewinsky and concludes that she was “lucky to have survived. I suppose we all were.” And yet for the bulk of My Last Innocent Year survival has barely been an issue.

For 30 years, Daniel Gewertz wrote about music, theater, and movies for the Boston Herald , among other periodicals. More recently, he’s published personal essays, taught memoir writing, and participated in the local storytelling scene. In the 1970s, at Boston University, he was best known for his Elvis Presley imitation.

Thanks, Daniel. Very well written review! And, of course, I remember you Elvis impression well (and other memories best left unspoken!) Jan

This is such an in-depth and interesting review, I couldn’t stop reading it. It’s too bad that the book he reviewed didn’t seem to match that. I look forward to reading more by this amazing reviewer.

Thank you for the rave review!

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My Last Innocent Year: A Novel Kindle Edition

An incisive, deeply resonant debut novel about a nonconsensual sexual encounter that propels one woman’s final semester at an elite New England college into controversy and chaos—and into an ill-advised affair with a married professor. It’s 1998 and Isabel Rosen, the only daughter of a Lower East Side appetizing store owner, has one semester left at Wilder College, a prestigious school in New Hampshire. Desperate to shed her working-class roots and still mourning the death of her mother four years earlier, Isabel has always felt like an outsider at Wilder but now, in her final semester, she believes she has found her place—until a nonconsensual sexual encounter with one of the only other Jewish students on campus leaves her reeling. Enter R. H. Connelly, a once-famous poet and Isabel’s writing professor, a man with secrets of his own. Connelly makes Isabel feel seen, beautiful, talented: the woman she longs to become. His belief in her ignites a belief in herself, and the two begin an affair that shakes the foundation of who Isabel thinks she is, for better and worse. As the lives of the adults around her slowly come apart, Isabel discovers that the line between youth and adulthood is less defined than she thought. A coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal, Daisy Alpert Florin's My Last Innocent Year is a timely and wise portrait of a young woman learning to trust her voice and move toward independence while recognizing the beauty and grit of where she came from.

Print length 299 pages
Language English
Sticky notes On Kindle Scribe
Publisher Henry Holt and Co.
Publication date February 14, 2023
File size 2956 KB
Page Flip Enabled
Word Wise Enabled
Enhanced typesetting Enabled
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My Last Innocent Year Daisy Alpert Florin

Editorial Reviews

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice A Washington Post Staff Pick A March Indie Next Pick A USA Today Must-Read Book Named a Best Book of 2023 by Shondaland Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by Zibby Owens and LitHub Named a Most Anticipated Debut Book of 2023 by Debutiful Named a Must-Read Book of Winter by Entertainment Weekly and Town & Country “Lands like a refreshing, deep breath... My Last Innocent Year is a heartfelt chronicle of a writer who realizes that her stories about girls with feelings matter every bit as much as the ones written by the guy who annotates The New Yorker. ” ―Elisabeth Egan, The New York Times Book Review "The premise of a student getting involved with a professor might be (pleasantly, IMHO) familiar, but Florin's particular take on this narrative of power and self-discovery is insightful, specific, and enlivened by secondary characters who play genuinely meaningful roles. I devoured the whole thing in two nights." ―Maggie Shipstead, Conde Nast Traveler “This evocative, eloquent campus confidential lays out the complications of the Clinton-Lewinsky era just as you might remember them . ” ― People Magazine “Florin deftly captures the interior voice of a young woman in her early 20s, as Isabel sifts through thorny issues of consent and power. Writing about this tender period in life can often veer into maudlin territory; Florin not only avoids that type of sentimentality, she gives us a heroine to root for at every turn.” ― The Washington Post “There have always been impressionable young people who fall for older men ― teachers and other mentors ― and there have always been older men who have taken advantage of these crushes. But rarely has their story been told as thoughtfully as in Daisy Alpert Florin's intelligent and sensuous debut novel, My Last Innocent Year , a remarkable coming-of-age story that examines sexual politics, power and lust and the sometimes murky nature of romantic encounters.” ― Minneapolis Star Tribune “A deftly written campus coming-of-age debut narrative, My Last Innocent Year is one of those stories that stays with you.” ―Zibby Owens, GMA “A college senior reckons with the aftermath of what might have been sexual assault by a fellow student ― and tumbles into a love affair with her married professor ― against the backdrop of Clinton-Lewinsky-era America in Florin's resonant, coolly composed debut.” ― Entertainment Weekly “A deeply timely and relevant campus novel.” ― Town & Country “The clarity of this narration―the razor-sharp hindsight, the searing self-examination―creates a kind of portal into the mind of a girl on the cusp of change...This wonderful novel is a must-read.” ―Seattle Book Review “A poignant tale that doesn’t shy from sharp edges, a universal story both timeless and timely. . . An intimate, insightful novel.” ―New York Journal of Books “By the end of Florin’s masterful bildungsroman, our narrator is not somebody’s daughter, she is not someone’s victim, she is not someone’s lover. She is Isabel, and she defines her own story.” ― Chicago Review of Books “A quiet meditation on life and the moments that have shaped us, My Last Innocent Year is a dreamy debut, experienced like a memory unfolding on the page...Effortlessly told, this striking narrative pushes all of us to consider what it is that truly makes us an Adult and, in the face of that, what kind of adult we want to become.” ―The Michigan Daily “What was it like to be graduating college and stepping out into the real world when the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal broke? This is a riveting coming-of-age novel about a young woman in that exact situation. Many people have captured what it’s like on a college campus, but this has entered the pantheon of campus novels. Florin’s book is a frontrunner for novel of the year.” ― Debutiful “Readers will be rapt and pierced by a young woman's uphill battle, even in all her brilliance, to believe that she can be the ultimate witness to her own life.” ― Booklist “A brilliantly crafted campus novel for the generation before #MeToo...Florin’s prose is gorgeous and enthralling, and her imagistic portrayal of New England campus life―from divey college town bars to Winter Carnival to English department parties to skinny-dipping in the river―is pitch-perfect. She also succeeds where many stories of dubious sexual consent fail: She avoids heavy-handed moralizing in favor of ambiguity, however uncomfortable...Florin’s debut is not to be missed.” ― Kirkus “Immersive...Florin does great work exploring the era's murky sexual politics.” ― Publishers Weekly “ My Last Innocent Year possesses an urgent timeliness―in its examination of gender, power, and class on a college campus―but Daisy Alpert Florin’s remarkable debut is, at heart, an intimate, intricately constructed coming of age tale to rival the greats of the genre, from The Great Gatsby to Catcher in the Rye . Remarkable, unputdownable, brilliant.” ― Joanna Rakoff, author of My Salinger Year " Gripping, nuanced, and thought-provoking, My Last Innocent Year is an intimate portrait of a woman on the cusp of adulthood grappling with the thorniest of issues: agency and consent, ambition and jealousy, loyalty and betrayal. This beautifully written novel reverberated in my bones.” ―Christina Baker Kline, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Orphan Train “Propulsive, evocative, and very hot. Every page of My Last Innocent Year bursts with insight about a young woman, shaped by time and circumstance, who is learning to tell the truth.” ―Julia May Jonas, author of Vladimir “Florin is a magician. The salaciousness, the melodrama, and moral outrage one expects in a campus novel about a teacher/student romance are stunningly absent, and in their place Florin offers you nothing but her intoxicating clear sightedness, the kind of simplicity and weight and wisdom you very rarely see in a debut novel. Her characters feel so real it is almost indecent. Monica Lewinsky, but painted by Vermeer. The recognizable stereotypes of youth and lust so honestly accounted, it is like being offered your own youth captured in glass, not as you remember it, but as it was. Astonishing.” ―Rufi Thorpe, author of The Knockout Queen “ My Last Innocent Year is one of the best novels about life on a college campus I've ever read, and Isabel Rosen is a distinctive, necessary addition to the Jewish canon; Daisy Florin excavates her characters' journey through the end of innocence with great honesty, insight, and a singular voice.” ―Karen E. Bender, author of the National Book Award Finalist Refund “ My Last Innocent Year is a tightrope walk of a debut novel about womanhood, power, and privilege. Quietly propulsive, this is a book that asks us to reexamine the relationship between coercion and consent, a subtly crafted character study of an artist in the making―I could not put it down.” ―Ellie Eaton, author of The Divines “An incisive, honest, and compulsively readable coming-of-age story, My Last Innocent Year offers a refreshingly nuanced perspective on contemporary conversations about consent, the power dynamics of sexual relationships and friendships, and the challenges women encounter in claiming their place as artists.” ―Karen Dukess, author of The Last Book Party “ My Last Innocent Year hits a sweet spot: great storytelling, wonderful characters, and a genuinely complex set of ethical dilemmas that cannot be reduced to simple right and wrong.” ― Susan Scarf Merrell, author of Shirley “I tore through this sparkling and gritty coming-of-age novel, nodding the whole time. Yes, desire is messy. Sexuality can blur into violence. All the difficult, gray truths don't resolve into black-and-white clarity just because we wish they would. Yes, yes, yes. Daisy Florin is an astonishing writer and My Last Innocent Year is a remarkable book.” ― Catherine Newman, author of We All Want Impossible Things “Daisy Florin’s debut is a beautifully written, assured exploration of a young woman’s conflicting desires for love and sex, for success and recognition, for belonging and independence, and the destabilizing, heady affair that will shape her life for decades to come. Florin has managed to give us a story that is fresh, vital, and surprising, while at the same time will have readers nodding in recognition as Isabel Rosen navigates ambition, lust, grief, and what it means to find your voice in a world that doesn’t feel like it belongs to you.” ―Caitlin Mullen, author of Please See Us

About the Author

Product details.

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B09X419SLX
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Henry Holt and Co. (February 14, 2023)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ February 14, 2023
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 2956 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 299 pages
#196 in Jewish Literature & Fiction
#535 in Romance Literary Fiction
#875 in Coming of Age Fiction (Kindle Store)

About the author

Daisy alpert florin.

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Customers find the book extraordinarily engaging and beautifully written. They also describe the story as breathtaking, compelling, and sexy. Readers also describe it as an amazing debut.

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Customers find the writing style beautiful, compelling, and rich. They also say the characters are believable and the book is an incredible story.

"...But, this book is seamlessly written with interesting characters and a likable narrator...." Read more

"I did not expect to like this book as much as I did. But I found it well written . I found within it a couple of lines that took my breath away...." Read more

"...I think the best writing involves rich language, vivid, and scenes that you can taste , see, and touch painted in the mind, and CLARITY for the reader..." Read more

" This incisive , coming-of-age novel begins with a nonconsensual sexual encounter between two Jewish students at an elite New England college...." Read more

Customers find the book extraordinarily engaging, absorbing, poignant, and hard to put down. They also mention the age stories are nuanced and complicated.

"...5 stars despite my nitpicking, it was well constructed and enjoyable ." Read more

"Florin's book was a joy to read . I got right into the plot, was intrigued and didn't want the book to end...." Read more

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My Last Innocent Year by Daisy Alpert Florin: Book Review

My Last Innocent Year by Daisy Alpert Florin book cover

My Last Innocent Year is the story of a college student who experiences a nonconsensual intimate encounter with a friend in senior year. It is a thought-provoking debut read.

Acknowledgments:

Thank you to Henry Holt & Co and Macmillan Audio for the ARC and audiobook of My Last Innocent Year. The thoughts and opinions expressed here are my own.

[book-info]

From The Publisher:

My Thoughts:

Isobel Rosen is a married woman with a daughter. The book is primarily set in her senior year of college in the late 1990s as Isobel reflects upon this point in her life.

Isobel recalls a situation that she encountered with a male friend who has an intimate experience with her. One minute the two were making out. The next moment he became more aggressive and physically violates her. She did not voice that she didn’t want to go this far and he didn’t ask her if it would be okay. She’s confused as to whether or not this would be considered rape. She informs her roommate who goes ballistic and marks this man as a rapist.

Jump ahead a month or so. Isobel is attracted to her married professor Connelly. The two carry on an affair and Isobel falls fast for this man. Later, she finds out a little more about this man which changes her perspective. Without giving too much away, this affair continues to haunt Isobel to this day.

The story is character-driven and was a little slow at times for me. I don’t know how I feel about Isobel. On the one hand, I could not help but feel concerned for her regarding her experience with her friend. On the other hand, I have no tolerance for adultery, particularly going into a relationship knowing that the other is married. Having said that, the prose in this book is beautiful which helped to keep my interest.

There are multiple trigger warnings for this book including consensual sex versus lack of consent/rape, mental health struggles, infidelity/cheating, and suicide. This book will not be for everyone.

I listened to the audiobook version of My Last Innocent Year which was narrated by Sarah Bierstock. I thoroughly enjoyed her performance which was expressive, articulate and a pleasure to listen to. I’d recommend the audiobook version of this book to those that enjoy this format.

What I Liked:

The beautifully written prose
The thought-provoking story
The takeaway Isobel gleams from these relationships

According to Chren

This story does sound very thought-provoking and timely. Thanks for sharing your review.

thathappyreader

Thank you for reading.

Riyah Speaks

This sounds like such an intriguing read. I don’t know how to feel about the adulatory though. Great review!

Thanks Riyah!

This book sounds great – I love books that are thought-provoking.

I do too Katie! Thanks for reading.

Her Digital Coffee

Beautifully written review Jodie. This sounds like a very deep and character driven story. I’m happy to hear you enjoyed it. Thank you for including the trigger warnings!

Thank you for reading!

Wendy Williams

This sounds so intense!

It had a lot going on Wendy! Thanks for reading!

Klaudia Zuberska

Hello! A very inspiring post! Great review, I will read this book as soon as I get a chance 🙂 Greetings from Poland!

I hope that you enjoy it Klaudia! Thanks for reading!

Lisa Mandina (Lisa Loves Literature)

This is one I might want to read. Her experience sounds very similar to my own experience in college and how hard it is to say is it assault in that kind of situation or similar. Even when you are the one it happened to. Great review, thank you for bringing this one to my attention.

I’m sorry to hear this Lisa. I hope that you enjoy the book if you decide to read it.

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My Last Innocent Year: A Novel

By Daisy Alpert Florin

A coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal, Daisy Alpert Florin's My Last Innocent Year is a timely and wise portrait of a young woman learning to trust her voice and move toward independence while recognizing the beauty and grit of where she came from.

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My Last Innocent Year: A Novel

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Midway through her senior year of college, Isabel finds herself enmeshed in a sexual encounter that she feels, in hindsight, was not entirely consensual. Her activist roommate publicly humiliates the boy involved, and Isabel finds herself shaken as rumors abound. Better company is her new creative writing professor, Connelly, who is married but makes no secret of his interest in Isabel. Their affair is a revelation: Isabel sees it as an unlocking of her very self. But as her final semester gallops forward, she finds that even a man as beautiful as Connelly is no more than a very flawed human. As her preconceptions of power, sex, knowledge, marriage, and adulthood tumble around her, Isabel must finally figure out who she is and how to move into a life of her own.

This novel might initially seem like just another coming of age, just another story about a young girl fallen under the sway of an older, more powerful man. But the clarity of this narration—the razor-sharp hindsight, the searing self-examination—creates a kind of portal into the mind of a girl on the cusp of change. Readers of a certain age will recognize the liminal space Isabel inhabits, the time between childhood and young adulthood, her growing recognition that she has to trust herself and only herself. Only an innocent child can rely on anyone else. This wonderful novel is a must-read.

Author	Daisy Alpert Florin
Star Count	/5
Format	Hard
Page Count	304 pages
Publisher	Henry Holt and Co.
Publish Date	14-Feb-2023
ISBN	9781250857033
Bookshop.org
Issue	February 2023
Category	Popular Fiction
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My Last Innocent Year: A Novel Paperback – Feb. 13 2024

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An incisive, deeply resonant debut novel about a nonconsensual sexual encounter that propels one woman’s final semester at an elite New England college into controversy and chaos―and into an ill-advised affair with a married professor. It’s 1998 and Isabel Rosen, the only daughter of a Lower East Side appetizing store owner, has one semester left at Wilder College, a prestigious school in New Hampshire. Desperate to shed her working-class roots and still mourning the death of her mother four years earlier, Isabel has always felt like an outsider at Wilder but now, in her final semester, she believes she has found her place―until a nonconsensual sexual encounter with one of the only other Jewish students on campus leaves her reeling. Enter R. H. Connelly, a once-famous poet and Isabel’s writing professor, a man with secrets of his own. Connelly makes Isabel feel seen, beautiful, talented: the woman she longs to become. His belief in her ignites a belief in herself, and the two begin an affair that shakes the foundation of who Isabel thinks she is, for better and worse. As the lives of the adults around her slowly come apart, Isabel discovers that the line between youth and adulthood is less defined than she thought. A coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal, Daisy Alpert Florin's My Last Innocent Year is a timely and wise portrait of a young woman learning to trust her voice and move toward independence while recognizing the beauty and grit of where she came from.

Print length 304 pages
Language English
Publisher Holt Paperbacks
Publication date Feb. 13 2024
Dimensions 13.59 x 1.91 x 20.83 cm
ISBN-10 1250857058
ISBN-13 978-1250857057
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Publisher ‏ : ‎ Holt Paperbacks (Feb. 13 2024)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1250857058
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1250857057
Item weight ‏ : ‎ 454 g
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 13.59 x 1.91 x 20.83 cm
#720 in Jewish Literature (Books)
#4,838 in Coming of Age Fiction (Books)
#26,636 in Literary Fiction (Books)

About the author

Daisy alpert florin.

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To paraphrase “Pinball Wizard,” it’s a legal thriller — there has to be a twist. And so there is. Just when things seemed to be going well at Rusty’s trial, or at least as well as can be expected in the absence of a viable alternate suspect, his lawyer and friend Ray Horgan has some kind of episode. After a rambling non sequitur of an opening remark toward Carolyn Pohlemus’s estranged, angry son Michael, Ray keels over. By the look of things at the end of the Presumed Innocent Episode 6, he will not be getting up.

By now you know to expect a surprise at the end of every episode of this show, but this one’s a doozy. Just for starters, it blows up the entire case, which really had been going quite well from Rusty’s perspective. Ray baits that insanely angry medical examiner into getting insanely angry on the stand by luring opposing counsel Tommy Molto into ignoring his boss Nico’s wishes and continuing to question an obviously unstable witness. Nico doesn’t hide his displeasure…nor his suspicion that there’s something fishy about the skin evidence found beneath Carolyn’s fingernails.

‘Presumed Innocent’ Episode 5 Recap: A Portrait of the Prosecutor as a Middle-Aged Man

A mind-blowing scene in ‘presumed innocent’ episode 5 inspired my loudest scream of the year, ‘presumed innocent’ episode 4 recap: punching down.

In addition, Ray gets a much more staid and respectable expert to admit that the skin and saliva from Rusty found on Caroline could indicate that he kissed her rather than killed her. Audible gasps from the gallery for the alliteration there, the equivalent “If the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit.” Well done, Ray!

And he masterfully defends Rusty and undermines Tommy when he takes advantage of Tommy calling up a colleague who dislikes him, Eugenia, by getting her to point out that it was Tommy, not Rusty, against whom Carolyn had filed an HR complaint. Eugenia may not have approved of the affair and may not have liked Carolyn personally, but she dislikes Tommy, who “gave Carolyn the ick,” even more. (You know…Eugenia loves Rusty, hates his enemy Tommy, and hated his lover Carolyn, and has been weirdly prominent, and sure didn’t want to testify…Hmmmm…)

About the only thing Raymond doesn’t manage to do is get the Liam Reynolds theory into the official record. Could he have weathered the storm that young Michael’s testimony was shaping up to be? A lot of it gets stricken from the record as speculation on the kid’s part, but once you hear him say “I wanted to look in the eyes of the man who murdered my mother” a few times, it’s gonna stick, even if the judge tells you not to let it.

But director Greg Yaitanes, working off a script by Sharr White and Miki Johnson, starts planting the seeds early enough that you’re not even sure what you’re looking at until it starts happening. I’d been taking Ray’s startled reactions and angry cries of “objection!” as evidence he’d been caught by surprise, or just thought of some compelling new angle. It didn’t occur to me it was the start of his brain exploding. Expert work by all involved, especially actor Bill Camp.

So what now? In the short term, it may redound to Rusty’s benefit. Quite without thinking, he rushes to Raymond’s aid, first performing CPR, then holding his terrified wife Lorraine as EMTs use defibrillators on him, to no avail. The jury will see all of this. They’ll remember it.

Good thing, too, because Rusty is not covering himself with glory anywhere else. At home, it’s a miracle Barbara is staying with him, especially after he responds to her admission that she kissed Clifton the Ph.D bartender by actually getting briefly physical with her. But all she does is skip a day of testimony she’d likely have skipped anyway. Even so, juries notice that kind of thing too. Also, she’s crying on the shoulder of Lorraine, who already believes Rusty killed Carolyn. How’s she gonna feel about him now?

Presumed Innocent is a good-looking show in a non-ostentatious way, and that’s true throughout this episode. Little moments like Barbara and Rusty hugging in their living room. Tommy returning home and displaying genuine, uncomplicated happiness as he hugs his adorable orange cat. Jaden clinging to Rusty almost for dear life. The almost expressionistic positioning of Rusty, Mya, Ray, and Barbara for the camera in their meeting discussing Barbara’s demeanor in court. It’s nice to feel rewarded for watching.

There’s something else emerging from this trial, if it wasn’t already apparent: Rusty and Carolyn are kind of unpleasant people, at least under certain circumstances. There’s the affair, of course, but beyond that, Rusty has an explosive temper and a lack of boundaries. Carolyn rubbed colleagues the wrong way, hid evidence, and abandoned her child, who has some choice words for that decision even as he’s testifying in hopes of putting Rusty away for her murder.

That’s the king about magnetic people like Rusty and Carolyn: They’ll repel some people just as surely as they attract a lot more. The mystery here is which category of person is responsible for what happened to Carolyn? Someone who found her unbearable, or someone who found her irresistible?

Sean T. Collins ( @theseantcollins ) writes about TV for Rolling Stone , Vulture , The New York Times , and anyplace that will have him , really. He and his family live on Long Island.

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Review: ‘My Last Innocent Year,’ by Daisy Alpert Florin
Review: ‘My Last Innocent Year,’ by Daisy Alpert Florin
My Last Innocent Year by Daisy Alpert Florin: Book Review
My Last Innocent Year Book Review 📚💙
'My Last Innocent Year' reflects on consent in the Monica Lewinsky era
My Last Innocent Year

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COMMENTS

Review: 'My Last Innocent Year,' by Daisy Alpert Florin
Daisy Alpert Florin's moving debut novel, MY LAST INNOCENT YEAR (Holt, 320 pp., $26.99), falls into the second category for me. As a graduate of a New England liberal arts college in the 1990s ...
My Last Innocent Year by Daisy Alpert Florin
12,240 ratings2,042 reviews. An incisive, deeply resonant debut novel about a nonconsensual sexual encounter that propels one woman's final semester at an elite New England college into controversy and chaos—and into an ill-advised affair with a married professor. It's the winter of 1998 and Isabel Rosen has one semester left at Wilder ...
MY LAST INNOCENT YEAR
MY LAST INNOCENT YEAR. A brilliantly crafted campus novel for the generation before #MeToo. A young woman navigates sex and power at an elite New England college in the late 1990s in Florin's debut. Isabel Rosen, the daughter of an artist mother and a father who owns a Lower East Side appetizing store, is hardly the typical student at New ...
My Last Innocent Year
Disclaimer: This review is based on an ARC received from NetGalley and Henry Holt and Co. in exchange for an honest review. Review: Florin's debut novel, "My Last Innocent Year," unfolds like an indie movie, capturing a snapshot of Isabel's tumultuous senior year at Wilder College amidst the backdrop of the late '90s.
Review: 'My Last Innocent Year,' by Daisy Alpert Florin
This book will be published on Valentine's Day, which seems both appropriate and ironic. Laurie Hertzel is the Star Tribune's senior editor for books. My Last Innocent Year. By: Daisy Alpert ...
My Last Innocent Year
My Last Innocent Year. by Daisy Alpert Florin. Publication Date: February 13, 2024. Genres: Fiction. Paperback: 304 pages. Publisher: Holt Paperbacks. ISBN-10: 1250857058. ISBN-13: 9781250857057. It's 1998, and Isabel Rosen has one semester left at Wilder College, a prestigious school in New Hampshire.
My Last Innocent Year
A coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal, My Last Innocent Year is a timely and wise portrait of a young woman learning to trust her voice and move toward independence while recognizing the beauty and grit of where she came from. International Editions: Spain. Germany.
a book review by Claire Fullerton: My Last Innocent Year: A Novel
"A tale to please YA readers and well beyond, it's a poignant story that doesn't shy from sharp edges, universal, timeless, and timely." My Last Innocent Year by debut author Daisy Alpert Florin, is an intimate, insightful novel; a 21-year-old's first-person account depicting her last semester at small town Wilder College in 1998 New Hampshire.
My Last Innocent Year
Chicago Review of Books. At its heart, My Last Innocent Year is a campus novel, and it hits many of the same notes as classics of the genre ... By the end of Florin's masterful bildungsroman, our narrator is not somebody's daughter, she is not someone's victim, she is not someone's lover. She is Isabel, and she defines her own story.
Review
★★★★☆ My Last Innocent Year by Daisy Alpert Florin Published on February 14, 2023 by Henry Holt and Company Genres: Adult fiction, contemporary, historical fiction, coming-of-age "At twenty-two, I still believed adults did things because they made sense, that they had information I did not have, by virtue of being adults. I was beginning to…
My Last Innocent Year by Daisy Alpert Florin
My Last Innocent Year Book Review. A thought-provoking and beautifully written coming-of-age campus novel, in My Innocent Year we meet Isabel Romen, a senior at Wilder College, who has a disconcerting sexual encounter with a fellow-classmate she once considered a friend.
Book Review: "My Last Innocent Year"
My Last Innocent Year by Daisy Alpert Florin. Henry Holt and Company, 290 pages. Daisy Alpert Florin graduated from Dartmouth in 1995. A writer by trade, she waited over a quarter-century to publish her first book — My Last Innocent Year — a coming-of-age novel inspired by her time in college. Since issues of gender, sex, and social class ...
Reviews: My Last Innocent Year by Daisy Alpert Florin
Rating: Four. Review: "My Last Innocent Year" by Alpert Florin. My Sentiments: 'My Last Innocent Year' was a subtle, exciting novel, with the story taken from the last college year,1990, of Isabel Rosen coming of age. Sarah Bierstock narrated this story, and she did an excellent job with this story. This story features "friendship, family ...
All Book Marks reviews for My Last Innocent Year by Daisy Alpert Florin
Chicago Review of Books. At its heart, My Last Innocent Year is a campus novel, and it hits many of the same notes as classics of the genre ... By the end of Florin's masterful bildungsroman, our narrator is not somebody's daughter, she is not someone's victim, she is not someone's lover. She is Isabel, and she defines her own story.
My Last Innocent Year: A Novel
—Karen E. Bender, author of the National Book Award Finalist Refund "My Last Innocent Year is a tightrope walk of a debut novel about womanhood, power, and privilege. Quietly propulsive, this is a book that asks us to reexamine the relationship between coercion and consent, a subtly crafted character study of an artist in the making—I ...
My Last Innocent Year: A Novel Kindle Edition
Quietly propulsive, this is a book that asks us to reexamine the relationship between coercion and consent, a subtly crafted character study of an artist in the making―I could not put it down." ―Ellie Eaton, author of The Divines "An incisive, honest, and compulsively readable coming-of-age story, My Last Innocent Year offers a ...
My Last Innocent Year by Daisy Alpert Florin: Book Review
There are multiple trigger warnings for this book including consensual sex versus lack of consent/rape, mental health struggles, infidelity/cheating, and suicide. This book will not be for everyone. I listened to the audiobook version of My Last Innocent Year which was narrated by Sarah Bierstock.
An Identity for Herself in "My Last Innocent Year"
On the other hand, the mid-1990s weren't so great for some people. Monica Lewinsky, for instance, probably has had better decades. Likewise, Isabel, the protagonist and narrator of Daisy Alpert Florin's debut novel, My Last Innocent Year, might not have had such a great decade. Since then, societal attitudes toward consent and sexual ...
My Last Innocent Year by Daisy Alpert Florin
A senior in college begins to date a professor and questions everything. Our protagonist in My Last Innocent Year is Isabel Rosen. It is 1998, on the eve of the Clinton Scandal, and she attends Wilder College in New Hampshire. Her mother died years before, leaving some evident trauma on our protagonist, and her father owns an appetizing store ...
My Last Innocent Year: A Novel by Daisy Alpert Florin
A coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal, Daisy Alpert Florin's My Last Innocent Year is a timely and wise portrait of a young woman learning to trust her voice and move toward independence while recognizing the beauty and grit of where she came from. Show more. ADD TO MY SHELVES. Recommend book. BUY THE BOOK.
Daisy Alpert Florin
Yes, yes, yes. Daisy Florin is an astonishing writer and My Last Innocent Year is a remarkable book.". ―Catherine Newman, author of We All Want Impossible Things. My Last Innocent Year by Daisy Alpert Florin. An intimate, intricately constructed coming of-age tale to rival the greats of the genre, from The Great Gatsby to The Catcher in the ...
My Last Innocent Year: A Novel
Author: Daisy Alpert Florin: Star Count /5: Format: Hard: Page Count: 304 pages: Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. Publish Date: 14-Feb-2023: ISBN: 9781250857033 ...
My Last Innocent Year: A Novel Paperback
My Last Innocent Year: A Novel: Florin, Daisy Alpert: 9781250857057: Books - Amazon.ca ... " ―Elisabeth Egan, The New York Times Book Review "The premise of a student getting involved with a professor might be (pleasantly, IMHO) familiar, but Florin's particular take on this narrative of power and self-discovery is insightful, specific, and ...
100 Best Books of the 21st Century
As voted on by 503 novelists, nonfiction writers, poets, critics and other book lovers — with a little help from the staff of The New York Times Book Review. Many of us find joy in looking back ...
Our Critic's Take on the 100 List: Books That 'Cast a Sustained Spell'
In 2006, the editors of the Book Review ran a similar poll, asking 100 prominent literary people to identify "the single best work of American fiction published in the last 25 years." Of the ...
'Presumed Innocent' Episode 6 recap: "The Elements"
By the look of things at the end of the Presumed Innocent Episode 6, he will not be getting up. By now you know to expect a surprise at the end of every episode of this show, but this one's a doozy.
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A Timeline of 21st Century Books
100 Best Books of the 21st Century: As voted on by 503 novelists, nonfiction writers, poets, critics and other book lovers — with a little help from the staff of The New York Times Book Review.
After assassination attempt, Trump and Biden seek calm, unity
President Joe Biden, a Democrat, ordered a review of how a 20-year-old man with an AR-15-style rifle got close enough to shoot at Trump from a rooftop on Saturday. Trump, as a former president ...

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Review | ‘My Last Innocent Year’ by Daisy Alpert Florin

My Last Innocent Year by Daisy Alpert Florin Published on February 14, 2023 by Henry Holt and Company Genres: Adult fiction, contemporary, historical fiction, coming-of-age

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