E.T phone home? More like fax home. Join us this month as we fangirl over our favorite alien Adina in Marie-Helene Bertino's Beautyland. This book is really the whole package - it made us think, made us cry, and made us laugh. Adina provides original (or unoriginal depending upon who you ask) takes on the human world that are downright hilarious. Amongst the laughter over her dry humor, we discuss the emotional journey we all had with this book as we follow Adina's life on Earth and her interactions with her superiors. Per usual, we will continue with our Season 2 spoiler-free intros, where we will discuss our initials thoughts about the book before turning spoiler full in the second half of the show. We encourage you to tell us your own thoughts through a footnote, which you can submit here!
For more bookish content, check us out on instagram @bookedonsundayspod and on tiktok @bookedonsundays. Next month we are taking a dive into sci-fi with This is How You Lose the Time Way by Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone, Don't forget to book your Sundays!
Book blurb:
From the acclaimed author of Parakeet, Marie-Helene Bertino’s Beautyland is a wise, tender novel about a woman who doesn't feel at home on Earth.
At the moment when Voyager 1 is launched into space carrying its famous golden record, a baby of unusual perception is born to a single mother in Philadelphia. Adina Giorno is tiny and jaundiced, but she reaches for warmth and light. As a child, she recognizes that she is different: She possesses knowledge of a faraway planet. The arrival of a fax machine enables her to contact her extraterrestrial relatives, beings who have sent her to report on the oddities of Earthlings.
For years, as she moves through the world and makes a life for herself among humans, she dispatches transmissions on the terrors and surprising joys of their existence. Then, at a precarious moment, a beloved friend urges Adina to share her messages with the world. Is there a chance she is not alone?
Marie-Helene Bertino’s Beautyland is a novel of startling originality about the fragility and resilience of life on our Earth and in our universe. It is a remarkable evocation of the feeling of being in exile at home, and it introduces a gentle, unforgettable alien for our times.
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