Anna Pitoniak's five favourite novels about New York City

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Reading lists

Anna Pitoniak’s five favourite novels about New York City

Anna Pitoniak

This winter's cathartic read: a story that feels familiar yet wholly original, like every heartbreak ever

Tender and wise . . . Pitoniak's voice is stylish and authentic, and perfect for exploring this rich territory: youth and love and New York City

A thoroughly modern love story. Original and engaging. I absolutely loved it

This stands out for its beautiful writing, emotional depth and evocative feel

An unflinchingly honest tale of two young people trying to navigate expectations and learning to live with their own mistakes. A compelling and memorable debut

The Futures reminded me of Brightness Falls, Jay McInerney's great novel of New York, for Pitoniak, like McInerney, possesses an instinctual understanding of the mechanisms that make the city run and a knack for embracing her characters' thornier sides. Utterly enjoyable

The Futures is a haunting story of a relationship going wrong, set against the backdrop of a world that feels like it has gone utterly wrong, too. This will appeal to anybody who's been an early twenty-something and not known where life will go next. I loved it

The Futures is a love story and so much more. It captures the heartaches and exhilarations of early adulthood with a keen eye, a big heart, superb writing and an artfully intricate plot. This is a book for people of all ages looking for a place in the world, and Anna Pitoniak is a young novelist with some serious writing chops

Anna Pitoniak's debut novel, The Futures, is the perfect cocktail of smart prose, heartwarming characters, and unmatched savvy about modern city life. Like The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. or A Fortunate Age, this book will amaze and elate you

author of The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards

Mesmerizing . . . The novel's alternating structure is hypnotic. Pitoniak is an absolute ventriloquist, completely inhabiting the voice of the two protagonists - their ambitions, anxieties, pettiness, sadness, and great love for one another. I couldn't put it down

author of Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist

Set amid the 2008 financial collapse, Pitoniak's assured debut explores the cost of realizing-and misinterpreting-one's dreams . . . Navigating terrain-love and youth, college and city life-that's often oversimplified, Pitoniak eschews cliché for nuanced characterization and sharply observed detail. Evan and Julia ring true as 20-somethings, but Pitoniak's novel also speaks to anyone who has searched among possible futures for the way back to what Julia calls 'the person I had been all along'

Pitoniak's well-plotted, character-driven, interior-focused novel captures the knowable angst of the unknowable possibilities of modern young adulthood

Pitoniak expertly captures both the excitement and the oppressive darkness of being young and at sea in New York City, the unsettlingly thin line between freedom and free fall. Deeply empathetic-and always engaging. A bittersweet coming-of-age drama and a portrait of an era

The Futures takes place on the cusp of the 2008 market crash, and so perfectly encapsulates that time of life when everything was just beginning, when you had no idea who you were or where you were going

Pitoniak maintains her keen eye for the universal insecurities facing her generation today, from romantic uncertainties and the relative benefits and downsides of hedge fund and nonprofit jobs to the emotional effort it requires to negotiate the predetermined facts of one's upbringing with the person one chooses to become

Pitoniak's debut focuses on that time of life that is at turns both exhilarating and terrifying: right after getting out of college, when you're forced to confront who you are and who you want to be, when you know life is just beginning, but you're also starting to feel like many of your options are fading away

Pitoniak's precise and incisive powers of observation gives us a book with startling grace notes

Anna Pitoniak's inspired debut centers on two recent college grads who move to New York City together during the 2008 recession and watch their relationship change drastically

A New York love story

This is a story of a relationship that falls apart. A story of heartbreak and betrayal. 
 
It is the story of a young couple who graduate from Yale in 2008, just as the financial crisis begins and there are no jobs for graduates. It is a story of their new start together in New York City and their tentative first steps into adulthood. It is a story of growing up and taking chances and making terrible, terrible mistakes. 
 
This is Evan and Julia's story. 
 
This is a love story. 
 
But no one said it ends happily.

Anna Pitoniak

Praise for The Futures

This winter's cathartic read: a story that feels familiar yet wholly original, like every heartbreak ever

Tender and wise . . . Pitoniak's voice is stylish and authentic, and perfect for exploring this rich territory: youth and love and New York City

A thoroughly modern love story. Original and engaging. I absolutely loved it

This winter's cathartic read: a story that feels familiar yet wholly original, like every heartbreak ever

Tender and wise . . . Pitoniak's voice is stylish and authentic, and perfect for exploring this rich territory: youth and love and New York City

A thoroughly modern love story. Original and engaging. I absolutely loved it

This winter's cathartic read: a story that feels familiar yet wholly original, like every heartbreak ever

Tender and wise . . . Pitoniak's voice is stylish and authentic, and perfect for exploring this rich territory: youth and love and New York City

A thoroughly modern love story. Original and engaging. I absolutely loved it

Articles featuring Anna Pitoniak

Anna Pitoniak’s five favourite novels about New York City

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