-
Access Our
Best Book Club
Books of 2025!
Summary | Excerpt | Reviews | Beyond the book | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio
Book Reviewed by:From the New York Times bestselling author of The Dogs of Babel, a taut, emotionally wrenching story of how a seemingly "normal" family could become desperate enough to leave everything behind and move to a "family camp" in New Hampshire - a life-changing experience that alters them forever.
How far will a mother go to save her family? The Hammond family is living in DC, where everything seems to be going just fine, until it becomes clear that the oldest daughter, Tilly, is developing abnormally - a mix of off-the-charts genius and social incompetence. Once Tilly - whose condition is deemed undiagnosable - is kicked out of the last school in the area, her mother Alexandra is out of ideas.
The family turns to Camp Harmony and the wisdom of child behavior guru Scott Bean for a solution. But what they discover in the woods of New Hampshire will push them to the very limit. Told from the alternating perspectives of both Alexandra and her younger daughter Iris (the book's Nick Carraway), this is a unputdownable story about the strength of love, the bonds of family, and how you survive the unthinkable.
Parkhurst writes with compassion and sensitivity about the experience of parenting and fervently loving a child drastically different from the one you imagined...continued
Full Review
(560 words)
This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access,
become a member today.
(Reviewed by Norah Piehl).
Like many kids on the autism spectrum, Tilly has a passionate interest, one she loves to research and that she'll happily talk your ear off about if you ask (or even if you don't). In her case, she's fascinated by massive sculptures past and present, from the Colossus of Rhodes to the Lincoln Monument.
More than anything else, though, Tilly likes to talk about the Spring Temple Buddha, the world's largest statue. Built between 1997 and 2008 in a relatively remote part of China's HenanProvince (a common site for Buddhist pilgrimages) the statue stands 420 feet tall (502 if you count the base, which Tilly doesn't). The statue depicts Vairocana Buddha, which illustrates, among other things, "shunyata," the Buddhist ...
This "beyond the book" feature is available to non-members for a limited time. Join today for full access.
If you liked Harmony, try these:
by Edward Hoagland
Published 2016
Sixty years after the publication of his first novel, Cat Man, Edward Hogland is publishing his twenty-fifth book at the age of eighty-three.
by Paul Harding
Published 2014
A stunning mosaic of human experience, Enon affirms Paul Harding as one of the most gifted and profound writers of his generation.
Jami Attenberg, New York Times bestselling author of The Middlesteins
A fascinating tale of a family taking a crazy risk to save themselves. I read it in one giant gulp - Harmony is absolutely riveting.
.gif)