Thanks to Bookishfirst and Celadon for this ARC.

Let me begin by saying, I almost gave up on this book 3 times before finishing it finally for many reasons, the too small print/font on such a large book (almost 500 pages), and it was giving me a headache to be honest with you. I was at my breaking point at page 100, where I usually abandon a book I don't like or tolerate. It started picking up finally and about the triplets lives and not the beginning of the parents lives. I think another reason I almost DNF and it took me longer than usual to read was the way the author structured her sentences where I had to re-read sentences to make sense. I found this in her other book The Plot which also took me longer than usual to read.
I'm a big reader of Jewish families and this is what drew me to it.

It was a very long and complicated book about Jewish families who really never communicated and the triplets hardly acted like siblings throughout the years until almost finally the end when they were grown. The last part of the book was the best about the "last" sibling aka “The Newcomer,” who was my favorite.

Well written and interesting characters. Liked how it all tied together. ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair review.

This month the #literarylovelies read an ARC that was sent to us by @celadonbooks. The Latecomer is the saga of the Oppenheimer family and how the family changes over time.

The story follows the very rich Salo and a Johanna Oppenheimer as they meet in NYC and try to grow their families. They have triplets born in the early times of IVF and they freeze one remaining embryo. As the triplets grow up, they aren’t very close to each other or to their parents. They go off to college and two of them even go to the same school, but pretend they don’t know each other. Johanna has always dreamed of a big family and decides to use a surrogate and their last embryo to have one more chance at a child to be close with. Phoebe, the 4th and youngest of their children is born 19 years after the triplets.

This book is LONG and very detailed. Too detailed. I actually really enjoyed the story despite the slow burn, but it’s gets lost in too much detail and unnecessary commentary. Salo is very into art and there’s a lot of discussion around it so if you like art and upcoming artist, you will be very happy.

As always, I very much enjoyed our discussion of the book. There was a lot to talk about and we are very thankful to Celadon for our gifted books. The Latecomer is out in May 31!

The Latecomer is a moving novel about the members of the Oppenheimer family. Beginning with Salo, the patriarch, and an accident in his late teens that became the defining moment of his life, we see the ripple effects of his grief, inability to love, and obsession with art trickle down to his wife and children.

The novel is broken up into three parts - the stories of Salo and Johanna, the triplets, and finally "the latecomer." My interest waxed and waned during this long novel and I felt myself most intrigued with the triplets' stories.

The Oppenheimer triplets fascinated me. I have always seen such an incredible bond of love and friendship and unity between multiples so the fact that Sally, Lewyn, and Harrison were at best indifferent and at worst openly hostile toward one another was surprising, very interesting, and also quite heartbreaking.

Many of the characters in this novel are deplorable. The triplets were arrogant, self-centered, and entitled. Harrison particularly irked me and I felt myself rooting for him to fail. Part of me related to Johanna and her plight to mold her family into something it just wasn't and never would be.

I was interested in the deeper themes permeating throughout this novel - identity, self-worth, family, racism, privilege, and intelligence versus education. There were parts to the story I absolutely did not see coming and they really helped propel my interest, however, this book was definitely longer than it needed to be and I can see the length dissuading some readers.

Overall, I was completely enthralled with the Oppenheimer family and their flaws. By the end of the book, I felt like I knew them and I was sad to say goodbye.

If you love a character-driven novel about dysfunctional families, I absolutely recommend.

Thank you to Celadon Books and NetGalley for the copy of this novel.

The author takes us on a long winding road with many detours into the lives of the Oppenheimer family. Each detour leads to more insights into the family dynamics and individual choices. The story speeds up as it goes on and ends with a satisfying conclusion.

Wow, this is the longest book that I have read in some time! Although I think it was slow in parts and could have shaved off 100 pages I felt that most of the 485 pages were well spent! After reading it and getting invested in the characters I feel I may have a book hangover on this one. This also makes me want to go back and read The Plot, which I have wanted to read since hearing about it last year.

Synopsis:

Johanna wanted nothing more than to be a mother. After countless attempts and failures she decided that the best solution was for her and Salo to try invitro fertilization. In the early 80’s this was still very expensive but she as Salo Oppenheimer had the means. This process produced triplets for the couple, two boys and a girl. Unfortunately, this did not create a cohesive family. The triplets were not close with each other or their parents.

Salo had his own demons. While at Cornell he was involved in a car accident that haunted him for the rest of his adult life. He did not feel happiness and did not know how to love. I believe that despite Johanna’s efforts this is what caused the family to be broken. After all the best thing you can do for your children is have a strong healthy marriage.

Salo was absent for most of the triplets' childhood. He would escape to his collection of art stored in Red Hook. He sought solace from those outside of his family. To help ease the pain Johanna felt when she thought about her children leaving for schools she decided to use the 4th embryo they had frozen long ago to make a new child. It’s this child that will try to bring the family back together.

The book touches on many themes: but I believe the most important one is having a family that is there for you and that you can lean on. I really felt for the mother who was unable to accomplish this. Mothers bare the responsibility for the health of their family whether that is fair or not and used that to measure the success of their ability as a mother. Other themes were racism, religion, and sexual identity.

What I liked:
The book moved me to tears so that always helps!
The self exploration the triplets each went through during college.
Jewish characters that need to be made more mainstream in literature.
The power art can have on people.
The love story of one of the triplets.

I highly recommend this book if you like character driven literature. This is definitely a book you will need to buckle in for because it’s a long ride but so worth it!

Thank you @celadon for providing the Literature Lovelies with copies both physical and digital of this amazing book!

DNF - I got about 40% through and I just couldn't keep going. I very rarely DNF but this didn't work for me. I love character driven family dramas but this lacked any development or explanation for why these people hated one another so badly. Just when I THINK something is going to happen it's quickly glossed over and back we go to the art. It just didn't have enough of what I need in a story to continue the next 300 pages.

The Oppenheimer triplets - Harrison, Lewyn, and Sally - would like nothing more than to be free of each other forever. They’re about to (finally!) leave their cushy Brooklyn home for college (Ivy League, of course) when their parents make the bonkers decision to implant the leftover fourth embryo from the IVF cycle that resulted in the triplets’ birth, and this late-to-the-party fourth sibling might be exactly what this dysfunctional family needs to pull themselves back together.


I loved this book so much that it’s hard to even talk about it without sounding like a lunatic, other than to say it’s one of those books that fizzes in your brain when you start reading - from the second you start you just KNOW it’s going to be SO GOOD. I stayed up too late and tore through all 450 pages of this, and I already want to read it again. The characters are all flawed - so flawed - and some are utterly loathsome (Harrison, I’m looking at your smug AF young conservative face), but I still wanted everything to work out for them in the end. This book is funny and moving and the tone of the writing is so smart and witty and sarcastic and perfect it makes me want to scream (happy screaming, but I’ll still sound like a lunatic).

I will admit that I was not the biggest fan of The Plot, but after reading The Latecomer, I will read anything and everything that Jean Hanff Korelitz writes (and I’m ecstatic that she has a serious backlist to get cracking on)!

Fans of Korelitz’s best-seller THE PLOT may be surprised by the formal, almost Victorian tone of her new work. But, it’s perfectly suited for this tale of a truly dysfunctional family that can barely stand to be in the same room, let alone love one another ( or anyone else, for the most part. There’s Sal, the emotionally distant, often absent father, unable to move past an adolescent trauma, the “test tube” triplets, Harrison, Lewyn, and Sally, who, despite being triplets, have nothing in common and only want to dissociate from each other. Lastly, there’s Johanna, whose desperate attempts to “heal” her husband and create the perfect family only manage to suffocate everyone.
The titular “latecomer” and narrator is Pheobe Oppenheimer, Johanna’s last, desperate attempt, with her one remaining embryo, to transform the family. About 15 years younger than her siblings, Phoebe tries to understand events preceding her birth so as to make sense of her deeply fractured family.
Korelitz writes in often hilarious detail about the Oppenheimers’ world, and her descriptions of everything from Brooklyn hipsters to the New York art scene to Mormon religious fervor seem spot on. These details then are all expertly woven together in a way that truly surprises. I found that I appreciated the novel the further I read. And, even though THE LATECOMER is not a mystery there are definitely a few moments that made me gasp out loud or marvel at the author’s ability to bring everything full circle.

This book is great! Would definitely recommend. Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Have you ever loved a book so much, you're unable to describe it? It's just too close. Please apply that feeling to this review of The Latecomer: I could not/cannot get this family out of my head. The main characters, triplets who've never much cared for each other, are so real and flawed. Their backstory is heartfelt, their divergent paths are fascinating, and the narrator is *chefs kiss.*

Although interesting and a bit unusual, this story is one that I probably will not finish because it moves so horribly slow. One can't jump ahead because you might miss something important to the (hidden/eventual?) plot. The author uses TONS (i.e. pages) of words to describe what could be well said in several sentences or so. However, it's not a bad book but it will take forever and a week (at minimum, a month) to read it, even if you read very fast. For me, it's a DNF at 2.5 stars for this very reason. However, I will keep it on my Kindle and chip away at it because I really do want to know of these family members (except for the mother) ever decide to care about each other and interact accordingly.

Excellent, I have a feeling this is going to blow up! Well written, entertaining, and intricately woven family drama with low stakes. A thoroughly enjoyable read.

I really wanted to love this book, because I love a family novel and I have loved this author's previous books. However, it was so difficult to wade through the beginning of this book that I gave up. I really didn't like either Salo or Johanna and did not want to struggle through the rest.