In August - Large Print by Celeste Perri (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

"A gorgeous, sprawling love story that calls to mind Sally Rooney's Normal People and Lily King's Heart the Lover . . . a luminous novel of friendship, grief, faith, family, and the earthquake that is first love. Celeste Perri has written an instant classic."--Jenny Jackson, bestselling author of Pineapple Street and The Shampoo Effect

Before ambition, before betrayal, before heartbreak--there was August.

It's the height of summer when a teenage girl arrives alone at the blueberry farm in Maine, the only place left that might hold answers to so many questions.

Decades earlier, on the first day of college at Brown University, three people meet, forming a friendship that will forever change their lives. Maud, Connor, and Gideon couldn't be more different. Connor, the golden boy, is a jock who hails from the suburbs of D.C. and the genteel world of golf and country clubs. Maud, a spunky spitfire from New York City, is still trying to navigate her parents' acrimonious divorce that always puts her in the middle of the wreckage. And Gideon, a home-schooled child of fundamentalists who live on a farm in Maine, has come to Brown to right a wrong that he knows he'll never be able to undo.

Despite their differences, or perhaps because of them, the three become inseparable. Come August, they go to Gideon's family farm to pick blueberries. They return again and again for 30 years, including the one summer that changes everything--and which none of them will ever talk about.

Celeste Perri's In August is a decades-spanning tale of love and friendship that is utterly audacious and unpredictable, and announces the arrival of a remarkable new literary voice.

Review Quotes

"I absolutely adored this novel! I fell in love with the characters and was so sad to say goodbye to them when I turned the last page. What a wonderful story and a truly remarkable debut."--Liane Moriarty

"A gorgeous, sprawling love story that calls to mind Sally Rooney's Normal People and Lily King's Heart the Lover, In August is a luminous novel of friendship, grief, faith, family, and the earthquake that is first love. Celeste Perri has written an instant classic."--Jenny Jackson, New York Times bestselling author of The Shampoo Effect and Pineapple Street

"In this heartfelt, absorbing debut, Perri delivers a sweeping story about the friends that become family and the bonds that transcend space and time. In August is an ever-escalating, engrossing novel of a triangle in search of themselves within one another. Be it against beautifully rendered summers that you can almost feel, or via email exchanges that make you ache, Perri's prose will leave you scalded at times but ultimately healed, with a heart more whole."--Xochitl Gonzalez, New York Times bestselling author of Olga Dies Dreaming and Last Night in Brooklyn

"An incredibly special book--the kind that occupies such a chunk of your heart while reading, you feel you won't fully inhabit your own life again until the final page is turned. Generous, insightful, and deliciously knotty, In August crisscrosses thirty summers to tell the story of three friends trying and failing to be true to themselves and one another. I loved every moment with them."--Florence Knapp, New York Times bestselling author of The Names

About the Author

Celeste Perri has worked as a journalist at Bloomberg News since 2000. A native of New York and graduate of Brown University, she lives in Amsterdam with her husband and two children.