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The moving story of a daughter's quest to discover the truth about her beloved father's hidden past.
Ada Sibelius is raised by David, her brilliant, eccentric, socially inept single father, who directs a computer science lab in 1980s-era Boston. Home-schooled, Ada accompanies David to work every day; by twelve, she is a painfully shy prodigy. The lab begins to gain acclaim at the same time that David's mysterious history comes into question. When his mind begins to falter, leaving Ada virtually an orphan, she is taken in by one of David's colleagues. Soon she embarks on a mission to uncover her father's secrets: a process that carries her from childhood to adulthood. What Ada discovers on her journey into a virtual universe will keep the reader riveted until The Unseen World's heart-stopping, fascinating conclusion.
"Starred Review. Mysteries build, and Moore's gift for storytelling excels. This is a smart, emotionally powerful literary page-turner." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. Intelligent and brilliantly absorbing...Filled with achingly memorable scenes and beautifully nuanced writing, Moore's latest is a stunner in its precise take on identity and the compromises even the most righteous among us must make to survive life's challenges with grace." - Booklist
"Starred Review. Moore's vivid characters will stay with readers long after the story has ended. Highly recommended for literary fiction enthusiasts, with crossover appeal to sf fans." - Library Journal
"The biggest impact comes in the last chapter, which brings things together powerfully - if only chapters like this were intermingled throughout. This is for readers who love a slow, methodical reveal." - Kirkus
"I was so thoroughly engaged with The Unseen World. What a wonderful, fulfilling, riveting read, alive with complex characters, a thrilling story, wit, and, above all, a deep sense of compassion." - Jami Attenberg, author of Saint Mazie
"I absolutely love this wise, compassionate novel that challenges our definitions of family, of intelligence, and of love. Equal parts cerebral and heartbreaking, The Unseen World is utterly compelling, and its heroine Ada Sibelius is irresistible in all her thorny vulnerability." - Robin Black, author of Life Drawing
"In sparse, urgent prose, Liz Moore delivers a staggeringly beautiful meditation on love, legacy, and the emotional necessities that make life worth living. That lump in your throat? You won't quite know how it got there - nor believe how long it will stick around once the final page is turned." - Téa Obreht, author of The Tiger's Wife
"From the first page to the last, The Unseen World held me spellbound. I am Liz Moore's biggest fan, and after you read her new surprising, big-hearted novel you will be too." - Ann Hood, author of The Obituary Writer
"The Unseen World is a deeply compelling novel about the intimate mystery of family. The story of how the brilliant Ada decodes the past and grapples with her eccentric father's legacy is gripping, touching, and wonderfully intelligent." - Dana Spiotta, author of Stone Arabia
"Beautiful, redemptive, and utterly devastating. The kind of world I want to live in would be penned by Liz Moore." - Alex Gilvarry, author of From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant
This information about The Unseen World was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: © Maggie Casey
Liz Moore is the author of the New York Times bestselling novel Long Bright River, which was a Good Morning America Book Club pick and one of Barack Obama's favorite books of the year, as well as the acclaimed novels Heft and The Unseen World. A winner of the 2014-2015 Rome Prize in Literature, she lives in Philadelphia.
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