I didn't even know this was a subject I would be interested in but the parallel stories were told so well.

I really enjoyed this book up until the ending. Lots of action, generational trauma and family discord, as well as love and relationships. The author does a great job of describing things so you can see what’s happening as you read along. I don’t typically like novels that jump back and forth in time, so I struggled some with that. But this book kept me on the edge of my seat. However, the ending is abrupt and frustrating! Enough to make me kind of mad! That’s why I’m only giving it 3 stars.

I went into this arc almost completely blind. I liked the cover, quickly read the blurb and just jumped in.

I was not expecting to find beautiful and thoughtful writing. Sentences that made me stop reading just to give it more thought. I'm not one to annotate a book, but I found myself highlighting and sending quotes to my friends. It really touched me.

Not only is it a book that speaks to our generation, through this rage that consumes us all and only represents this hope that we have for our future, but it built meaningful relationships.

I do feel like the ending was rushed, so many questions left unanswered. Is Charles with Minerva just to take a stand to his father? What did Luc really do? Did Minerva reach out to her mother again?

Although I understood the link between Keen's story and Minerva's (other than them being father-daughter), I hoped it would be a bit clearer. Maybe have a bit more comparisons through the chapters.

I also wished that the big event that made Minerva move to Paris would be more controversial. Maybe that's the point? Maybe it helps getting the point accross? I don't know, that was a bit of a let down, and had to force myself to continue the book after.

Overall a great read that I recommend.

Thanks to the publisher for the e-galley! I gobbled this up, a novel that feels like a departure from Silverman's debut (for one, the scope!). I enjoyed this immensely, and can't wait to read whatever she does next.

Love Jen’s writing style but the subjects/plot just didn’t grab me enough to really get into this one. Felt kind of like Birnam Wood, which I just finished, and I didn’t want to jump back into that kind of thing… but I will probably pick it up when it comes out though and some time has passed.

This was a good book, told in two different time periods, you really get a sense of what was important to people during that time, and how similar those were. In 2018, Minnow is a teacher, she used to teach in a small town in the US, but was involved in an incident where she helped a female student, and although what she did was very minor, it blew up in her face and became a very public embarrassment, to her and her father. She accepts a position in Paris to escape from the spotlight. In 1968 Keen is a PhD student at Harvard, mostly he's trying to avoid being drafted and going to Vietnam. His time is consumed doing various experiments with other classmates until he meets Olya, an independent free spirit and falls hopelessly in love with her. The two timeline go back and forth, both building to a surprisingly similar conclusion. I really enjoyed this book, at points I just wanted to yell at the two characters to take a step back, and think of the consequences, of course they don't, there wouldn't be a story otherwise Overall very good and I would recommend. Thanks to #Netgalley and #Random House for the ARC.

The cover is so disjointed from the book so just addressing that from the start.

There are two POVs, one from Minnow in 2018 in France during the Macron protests and the other in the late 60s with her father against Vietnam and Dow chemicals, as a student. Keen (the dad) was written a lot better, but almost every character in this book is unlikeable. Unlikeable characters don't make for a bad book though. It's well written but could benefit from some better pacing.

2.5 stars rounded up.

I don’t know. This book was interesting to me but not intriguing. There were moments of it that I though to be very captivating but it dragged on too long. I think the book should have revealed the sort of connection Minnow had with her father in terms of the consequences of their “ activism” earlier. The whole book is spent waiting for what they have in common and it takes entirely too long for that to be revealed and a lot of the interlude in between felt uninspired and just boring. It wasn’t terrible though. Interesting premise but the execution was a little lackluster.

I adored Jen Silverman's WE PLAYED OURSELVES last year, so I was thrilled to dive into her newest THERE'S GOING TO BE TROUBLE. The book starts off so solid - I had to know what was going to happen next - but the momentum dies somewhere in the middle of the book and it left me a bit cold. The book is a story about protests, spanning from the 1960s at Harvard to 2018 in Paris. Telling the story of a father and daughter, and the rebelling that brings them together in unexpected ways, I thought the plot was sweet but the telling a bit lacking.

I can't deny that the book also feels extremely timely, and for that I am grateful. The rebellious, pacifist liberal in me reveled in the lefty ideologies the characters defend with such fierceness. But I still wanted the plot to move faster because there is a lot of mystery, and heartbreak, and I found myself just speeding through to find out what happens and not enjoying the journey.

Thank you to the publisher, Random House, and Netgalley for providing me with an early copy of this book in exchange for my unbiased review.

I really enjoy the juxtaposing of two very different, yet very similar movements. The book fell flat at some parts and didn't always hold my interest. There were a few moments that had me really engrossed, but everything in-between was hard to stay engaged with.

I do wish the 2018 storyline hadn't ended when it did, as I would have liked to see the fallout from the violence.

Genre: Historical/Political Fiction
Publisher: Random House
Pub. Date: April 9, 2024

Unless the intent is to catch the reader’s attention, it is unclear why the book’s cover image is a naked woman lying on her side, implying erotica. Combined with the cover, even the book’s title of “There’s Going to Be Trouble” can suggest sexuality. But this book does not contain any eroticism. Yes, you will read about two fixated love affairs during different decades—however, the narrative centers on political upheaval in the 1960s and 1980s.

In 1968, Keen is avoiding the Vietnam draft by pursuing a Ph.D. at Harvard. Unexpectedly, he experiences an intense, one-sided love affair with Olya. She is a college-aged, ferocious political community activist. While Keen is not interested in politics, he agrees to attend Olya’s latest political demonstration, which will be far more violent than usual and has a fatal outcome.

In 2018, 42-year-old Minnow (Minerva) lost her teaching position due to a questionable teaching choice she made with a student. This led to a scandal and press harassment of her and her father, Christopher. To avoid the unfavorable press in the States, she gets a teaching position in Paris. Here, she runs into an intriguing young man with left-radical views. She becomes smitten with him. For his sake, Minnow, too, becomes involved in a deadly demonstration for a cause she does not support. There is another connection between the two timelines other than romantic relationships and demonstrations. I would be giving away the ending if I told you.

Minnow, Keen, and Olya are egotistical individuals who don’t care about the people they endanger. Having all-unlikable protagonists can work in a novel, but not in this one since the plot occasionally fails to hold one’s attention. Silverman does a good job describing the 2018 real-life turbulent Macron protests. She does not do the same for the student revolts in her narrative. She continuously presents the reader with lethal revolutionary scenarios. Both timelines began to read the same. I started skimming, which is never a positive indication of a good tale.

At the novel’s end, the author creates suspense, which lures me back into the story. Silverman’s quick transitions between years with brief glances at the characters’ situations create a strong tension. This is a hard book to review. After skimming out of boredom, I became anxious about the plot’s outcomes. Additionally, I enjoyed Silverman’s descriptive writing, that effectively conveys the rage of the demonstrators followed by police brutality. Still, this novel was not for me. You may enjoy this one more than I did if you are keen on reading about non-peaceful political movements.

Thank you Net Galley and the publisher for an ARC of this book for an honest review.
Minnow wants to make her father proud so she has always been quiet and a respectful teacher until she decides to help a student. This turns out to be a major problem. She flees to Paris and is caught up in a protest. This gets a little more political for me. It’s well written by this author but the protests I just couldn’t get through.

There’s Going To Be Trouble is beautifully written and extremely complex. I am a fan of dual timelines, especially when they are well done and Jen Silverman did an excellent job. TGTBT weaves Christopher’s story from 1968 in with his daughters, Minnow, story in 2018 showcasing the many parallels while allowing them to be their own stories. I will never understand how Silverman was able to weave together two stories happening in different generations with family ties while including not only romance but also a large range of political topics. The characters were well thought out and the pacing made me unable to stop reading.

A side note - the cover is amazing, I cannot wait to put this one on my shelf.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for letting me read this early!

Thanks to the kind folks at NetGalley for the chance to read an ARC of this book.

Usually a sucker for a dual timeline, this one just didn't do it for me. Perhaps it's all the French. Or perhaps I simply didn't like any of the characters. But I'm thinking about it after I've read it and that always means something. Plus the ending is better than the beginning IMHO.

My thanks to NetGalley and Random House for the ARC read, which I received in exchange for my free and unbiased review of Jen Silverman’s There’s Going to be Trouble.

Wow. What a timely novel of political protest, abortion rights, late stage capitalism, family, and those who seek change in a broken world. Silverman has Crafted a tour de force, a novel, with nearly perfect pacing, one that had me turning pages as she sustains its narrative from the first page to the last. I had no signs of any lulls in this book. My sense is that that pacing for something to do with the structure of two protagonists: Minerva/Minnow/Minou, and her father Keene/Christopher Hunter. As the narrative oscillates between Christopher‘s relationship with Olya in 1968 and the political protest at Harvard with which they were involved, and forward to Minnow’s life in Paris, relationship with Charles, and political protests in that city, the pace is driven forward by their respective relationships, their mutual attempts to make enduring change world, and the political protest themselves.

As if that structural choice weren’t complex and clever enough, Silverman centers, Minnow’s reason for having to move to Paris in the first place in the middle of the novel. For the first half of the novel, there are only these hints at some thing having gone wrong in Minnow’s teaching job back in the United States, and her ultimately having to quit her job. But when we arrive at the middle of the novel, we learn that what caused her to have to quit her job was that she had agreed to drive a 16 year-old student to an abortion clinic across state lines. In that moment, as a reader, you.realize that Silverman has given us is a post -Roe world comparison of abortion, access, morality, and attitudes in the United States versus a country like France. When Minnow tells her boyfriend Charles in Paris, the reason that she had to leave the United States, his reaction is, “you can get in trouble for that?” It’s such a foreign concept to Charles and others that Minnow encounters in Paris that abortion rights are not assumed and automatic in the United States but also that somebody would be pilloried in the media and forced to quit their job over helping to take a woman to an abortion clinic. As it turns out, Minnow’s life is destroyed in the United States by protests nationally and in her very conservative former State, who publicly deride her, send her death threats, and even stalk her.

What Silverman really seems to be working through here is the cost-benefit of political protest, the individual and collective ability to create change through protest, or not, and the ethics of standing up for what you believe in. And, I find it so compelling that she doesn’t just give pat answers. Her characters really struggle with the rights and wrongs of these questions. Each of her characters is deeply conflicted and finding their way, just like actual humans do. And so for that, this book urns for me, one of my rare five star ratings. I think it’s going to be a really prominent important and best-selling novel when it comes out. Applause to Silverman for crafting a narrative that has enduring value and is intensely readable. I could not put it down.

In 1968 chemistry lab worker Keen is pulled into anti-war and other student demonstrations by an exuberant Olga. Their love affair will have consequences. Fifty years later in 1981, Minnow in Paris as a teacher gets caught up with anti government demonstrations against Macron's unpopular policies.

The two stories come together at the end of this literary novel about protests, youth demonstrations, and the question of how or whether they change anything they are against. by these protests.

I see this novel as about characters who change and grow and find meaning during those two turbulent times of demonstrations, rather than the significance of the demonstrations themselves. There are graphic descriptions, however, about the violence against the protestors by the police.

The pace is slow in most of the book and I had to keep reading to find the meaning and/or relevance of the characters' lives.

How do you build a house when all the building blocks are rotted through?

In 2018 the giletes jeunes protests are in full swing. Minnow is living in self-chosen exile in Paris, after a series of events led to her formerly unassuming life as a high school teacher becoming a matter of national debate. Now she's working at a university, and finds herself inextricably tied up in the protests as she begins a relationship with a young professor and activist. In 1969, protests against the vietnam war are rising, as Keen, a masters student, is trying to live a quiet unassuming life until he gets caught up in the protests after falling in love with a young activist. Switching mostly chapter by chapter between the two time periods and perspectives, we follow Keen and Minnow, father and daughter, as they make the same mistakes and struggle to try to get by in times of political and romantic upheaval.

I received this as an advanced readers copy from netgalley, mostly because I was trying to get a copy of J. Michael Stracynzki's new book. I did not succeed. I am grateful to have received this one though, and I genuinely really enjoyed it, but oh boy does netgalley's ereader app really suck. You cannot adjust the size of the font, and if you can make notes or bookmarks then I never found out how. Worst though, is that one wrong touch on the screen and it would jump around the book. This isn't a case where it would go back a page or so, but rather a full dozen pages, or forward a similar amount. Drove me crazy, but some finicky user interfaces are worth it to get to read a book this good.

There's Going to Be Trouble is about love and life during contentious times of political upheaval. Neither Minnow or Keen are people who see themselves as revolutionaries, they are quiet people who live quiet lives, but they fall into this due to a combination of falling in love with someone involved, and merely because they make choices hoping their the right ones. And of all the many things this book is about I think understanding people and the choices they make is a big part of it. It is not, per-se, a work of politics so much as a story about people caught in politics as the political becomes inextricable from the everyday.

There's Going to Be Trouble a beautifully written, wise and moving story that is inflicted all the way through with a sense of dread. Minnow, Keen, Charles and Olya are all people struggling to try to make sense of this world and find their place in it, and they are all to some extent failing, but their failure is for the same reason we all fail. We're broken. How do you make a house if the wood is rotted through? Do you give up and say it's broken? Do you try to let your life be quietly revolutionary? Or do you fight for that better future regardless? As Minnow later observes, a rotten house is better that no. Undoubtedly part of the reason society is broken is because we are, but that does not mean we couldn't build a better society, a better system, for all us broken people. One that tries to help us instead of exploiting the brokenness of the many for the gain of the few who have learned to play it like a game. We are the the contention ourselves, the world resides within us, but the inviolate future also resides within us and it's within us to try to make it.

I only got a little bit through this book but it was about to expire so I returned it. Looking forward to reading more of it. The storyline has me intrigued and I wonder how they both connect or even if they do at all.

Provocative, philosophical, and tense - There’s Going to Be Trouble is a gripping read.

In 2018, Minnow finds herself starting a new life in Paris after getting caught up in a scandal in the U.S. 50 years earlier in Boston, graduate student Keen finds himself utterly intrigued by Olya, an outspoken activist. Told in alternate timelines, we see how Minnow’s and Keen’s stories find similar arcs and how they face similar moral and intellectual dilemmas.

I was immediately captivated by Minnow and eventually warmed up to Keen as well. The writing is sharp and the stories unfold and intertwine beautifully with some surprises along the way (all while asking and not always answering questions about what it means and what it costs to stand for something).

Thank you very much to Random House and NetGalley for the opportunity to read a copy of this excellent novel.

"Why did nobody tell me this before?" she wondered, walking back to her car in the long, late shadows of the afternoon. "My whole life, everybody just told me to watch out-- for bad men, trouble, danger. Why did nobody tell me I could be dangerous too?"

There's Going To Be Trouble flashes back and forward in time between Minnow, in 2018, a 30-something teacher living in Paris and falling in love with a French activist in the midst of the mouvement des gilets jaunes, and her father Christopher, in 1968, a phD student at Harvard falling in love with an activist during anti-Vietnam War demonstrations. I am fascinated by questions of nature versus nurture, and the parallels and differences between the two narrators emphasize just that-- how much of Minnow's behavior and worldview is both shaped by and in opposition to her father? How much of how Christopher raised her was shaped by and in opposition to the journey he goes on during his own political awakening? Or how much was a genetic predisposition that they shared anyway? They both deal with trauma, violence, large-scale political upheaval, and love in complex, messy, human ways. I loved that in this (as in Silverman's first novel We Play Ourselves), the characters are allowed to wrestle with their moral centers and with acts of violence and destruction in a nuanced, human way. I also was drawn in by the novel's dual love stories, both of which were quiet and private even though they were playing out in conjunction with large-scale political moments. Thanks to Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group for the ARC!