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    Is This Tomorrow
    Is This Tomorrow
    Is This Tomorrow
    Audiobook11 hours

    Is This Tomorrow

    Written by Caroline Leavitt

    Narrated by Xe Sands

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    It#8217;s 1956, and working-mother Ava Lark and her son, Lewis, have rented a house in a less-than-welcoming Boston suburb. There, Lewis finds he is only able to befriend the other fatherless kids on the block, Jimmy and Rose. But when Jimmy goes missing, neighborhood paranoia ramps to new heights, further ostracizing Ava and Lewis.Lewis never recovers from the loss of his childhood friend. In his twenties, he is a failure in love, living without direction, estranged from his mother. When Jimmy#8217;s disappearance is unexpectedly solved, however, Lewis, Rose, and Ava are thrown together once more to try to untangle the remaining pieces of the puzzle and reclaim something of what they have lost.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighbridge Company
    Release dateMay 7, 2013
    ISBN9781622311439
    Is This Tomorrow
    Author

    Caroline Leavitt

    Caroline Leavitt is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Is This Tomorrow, Pictures of You, and eight other novels. Is This Tomorrow was a January magazine Best Book of 2013, a May Indie Next Pick, and a San Francisco Chronicle Lit Pick. Pictures of You was a Costco Pennie’s Pick and was on the Best Books of 2013 lists by Kirkus Reviews, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Providence Journal, and Bookmarks magazine. Leavitt’s new novel, Cruel Beautiful World, will be published by Algonquin Books in 2015. Her work has appeared in New York magazine, “Modern Love” in the New York Times, Salon, Redbook, More magazine, and more. She teaches writing at UCLA Extension Writers Program and Stanford and reviews books for People magazine, the Boston Globe, and the San Francisco Chronicle. She can be reached at Carolineleavitt.com.

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    Reviews for Is This Tomorrow

    4/5

    166 ratings51 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Great listening. Nice yet sad story. Recommended to all. ?
    • 5/5
      It was so beautiful written I felt I was really in the story.
    • 4/5
      adult fiction; missing child mystery. Strongly reminds me of What Was Lost, which also dealt with the after-effects of a child disappearing without a trace. Interesting characters and moving storyline--would recommend.
    • 5/5
      This book was recommended to me, and I was pulled right into the story line from the first chapter. I laughed, I cried, I watched each character mature, and cried a bit more, but for different reasons in the end. An emotionally moving book, but just what I needed for a change of pace. I will be reading more from this fantastic author.
    • 4/5
      This is one of my 2013 favorites! Leavitt tells us a story filled with loss, grief, mystery and suspicion. She allows us to feel the life of an outsider as a Jewish single mother in a 1950's suburb. This is a painful and yet beautiful story.


      I received a free copy of this book.
    • 5/5
      I received a copy of Is This Tomorrow by Caroline Leavitt in exchange for an honest review.
      Ava Lark is trying to make a life for herself and her twelve year old son, Lewis, in a suburban Boston neighborhood. As a divorcee in the 1950s life is somewhat difficult and being a single working mother only made some of the other neighbors view Ava with suspicion. When one of her son’s closest friends disappear the neighbor jump at another excuse to make life for Ava and her son, Lewis even worse.
      This book was one of the most emotional I have ever read and very thought provoking. Any parent reading this is absolutely sent to a part of their “cannot go there” horror. There were quite some twists and turns that nothing could have prepared me for and I felt so sad for Ava having to live a life that was not of her making and the blame her son placed on her for a situation he, as a child, could surely not understand. The prejudices against Ava, both for being divorced and Jewish was at a time when there was so little tolerance for the plight of others, maybe to some degree, has our world evolved much? But the fortitude Ava showed in the face of the odds placed against her was admirable for sure. It was good to see the children, Lewis and Rose grow up, but so sad when the truth was found… it makes me wonder if the truth would always set us free?? Not light reading, but very well written.
    • 4/5
      This is one of my 2013 favorites! Leavitt tells us a story filled with loss, grief, mystery and suspicion. She allows us to feel the life of an outsider as a Jewish single mother in a 1950's suburb. This is a painful and yet beautiful story.


      I received a free copy of this book.
    • 4/5
      Ava Lark and her twelve-year-old son, Lewis, are living in a Boston suburb in 1956. Ava is divorced and works hard to provide for Lewis whose father is no longer in the picture. She tries to make friends in her small neighborhood, but the fact that she is Jewish and unmarried isolates her. Jimmy and Rose are the kids next door and they and Lewis have formed a solid friendship. But one afternoon, Jimmy goes missing and suddenly Ava and Lewis fall under suspicion. Despite Lewis and Rose’s strong bond, when Rose and her mother move out of state, the two close friends lose contact with each other.Years later, Ava still lives in her little neighborhood, Lewis has moved to the midwest where he is working as a nurse’s aid, and Rose has created a new life for herself as a teacher in Michigan. The mystery of Jimmy’s disappearance has touched them all. When something happens that reunites Rose and Lewis, the trauma of that dark day is reignited and forces both young adults to answer some hard questions: What happens when someone you love disappears? Are some mysteries better left unsolved? Should we go back to our pasts to find healing for the future?Is This Tomorrow is a novel about love and loss. And it is about navigating the rough waters of adolescence and growing up after a heartbreaking tragedy. Caroline Leavitt creates memorable, empathetic characters and sets them down in mid-century America just outside an iconic city.Ava is a woman who grew up in an era of stay at home mothers and the pressure of being the perfect wife. She is forced to evolve and change when her marriage fails and must rely on her courage to care for her young son and make her way in a society which is largely judgmental about her ethnicity. The kids in the story – Rose, Jimmy and Lewis – represent the innocence of kids growing up in a time when neighborhoods felt safe.The cataclysmic event of a missing child is the conflict which blows apart relationships and challenges each character’s view of the world.Leavitt is skilled at creating a novel filled with tension, but also allows the characters to drive the plot. Is This Tomorrow is a haunting tale of literary suspense with a bit of a surprise ending that will break the reader’s heart.Readers who love family centered stories with well developed characters will enjoy this book.Recommended.
    • 3/5
      I received this in spring of 2013 as an Early Reviewers book, and saved it for a vacation. I'm glad I did as I was engrossed in the story. I enjoyed Leavitt's style of writing and will seek out more from her in the future.
    • 4/5
      Good read. I have read several of Leavitt's novels and find she tackles topics that take a slight left turn from the ordinary. I won't bore you with what the book is about, since you can read that on the book jacket, but I will tell you that her characters are always well developed and you find yourself thinking about them even after you have finished the book. With just enough suspense and realistic dialect it's a good, solid read.
    • 4/5
      There are some books that are hard for me as a mother to read. Having a child disappear without a trace is such a gut-wrenching possibility for any parent that it's just better not considered. Knowing that was the premise for Caroline Leavitt's latest novel, Is This Tomorrow, made me extremely reluctant to read the novel because it's always incredibly hard to face one of your biggest fears, even if only on the pages of a book. But as much as the novel is driven by the inexplicable disappearance of a child, it is about so much more than that. It is about acceptance and understanding, fear and blame, social mores and secrets, and the far reaching repercussions of pivotal events of childhood set in a much less accepting time historically. When Ava Lark and her son Lewis move into their new neighborhood, they are looked at slightly askance by the neighbors. Ava is a divorced single mother who has to work to support her son in their shabby rental on the outskirts of their safe, suburban neighborhood. If being divorced and rather glamorous looking isn't bad enough in Cold War era 1956, Ava is also Jewish, adding to her outsider status and making the WASP neighbors more suspicious of her differences. Smart as a whip Lewis also struggles to fit in, eventually becoming close friends with Jimmy and Rose, who come the closest to being like him since their mother is also a single mother, albeit widowed rather than divorced. Lewis develops a crush on the slightly older Rose while Jimmy worships Lewis' mother Ava. The three children spend almost all of their spare time together, running free through the neighborhood and only coming home for dinner and bed. But this time of innocence and friendship is abruptly shattered when Jimmy goes missing, presumed kidnapped, and the simmering suspicions and resentments of the neighbors look towards Ava and her unconventional life, as somehow involved in his disappearance. Time drags on without any information or clues to Jimmy's whereabouts and slowly, inexorably, life starts to grind on again. Rose and her mother, broken by loss, move away from the neighborhood. And so Lewis loses both of his friends, the people who kept him anchored and included. Both Rose and Lewis grow up in the shadow of guilt and paralyzing loss. Neither of them ever healed emotionally, Lewis drifting and directionless in his life and Rose alone and closed off to any real, deep, and lasting relationship. They are truly damaged souls, blaming themselves for not being with Jimmy when whatever overcame him occurred. When sister and friend reconnect years later in their adult lives, they struggle to share their feelings and overcome the weight of so many formative years even as they work together to discover finally what happened to Jimmy that long ago evening that spun their world off its axis and to search for the absolution that will allow them to accept and move on from their tragedy. There is a melancholy sadness to this novel even before Jimmy's disappearance. Both Lewis and his mother, Ava, are so alone and such outsiders that their loneliness pervades the text long before events threaten to crush them. Once Jimmy disappears and the neighborhood bands together to try and make sense of the unimaginable, the suspense increases but, as must be the sad truth in real life missing children's cases, it eventually peaks and then wanes again as it becomes clear that Jimmy's case won't be solved. Leavitt has done a phenomenal job building up to the disappearance and in portraying the emotions and tensions in its aftermath, both immediate and long term. She's captured the way in which the pain of such a seminal tragedy can affect those close to it, changing them, scarring them forever. But the denouement when Lewis and Rose come together as adults trying to piece together the truth of that evening stretched credibility. Despite the tangle at the end and the revelations that are just too convenient, the book is thought provoking and well written. And it addresses the concept of acceptance and otherness from a very different angle than most novels. This is not a happy book, pervaded as it is with a mournful and heavyhearted brooding but it is one that will keep the reader thinking about guilt, judgment, and absolution through all of its pages.
    • 3/5
      Oh this story made me so sad -- all those people out there, with so much to give, yet so sad, lonely, and alone. Leavitt paints a good picture of the time of my childhood, but, even without the pivotal event, the disappearance of young Jimmy, best friend of Lewis, and brother of Rose, these characters were all broken. (I also had just come off from reading another book I found incredibly sad, and was looking for something more hopeful, like Leavitt's Pictures of You, which I really liked.
    • 4/5
      The tradegy of losing a child and the toxic effect of secrets.Jimmy goes missing without a trace in the late 1950s. This type of thing isn't supposed to to happen in that bastion of the American Dream, the suburbs. Jimmy's sister, Rose, never loses hope that her brother can and will be found, to the point of obsession. Jimmy's best friend, Lewis, blames himself for the disappearance, thinking that if he had been a better friend this never would have happened. Lewis piles this guilt among the others he feels along with the stigma from his mother. His mother, Ava, is a divorced, Jewish, working woman who, just by her presence, besmirches the neighborhood in which they live. In a neighborhood already tense with Cold War fears, secrets fester as everyone tries to find answers - and someone to blame. But Jimmy seems gone for good.A tight, well written book. Ava is a particularly interesting character as she struggles to survive in a culture and community that is not welcoming to her or her circumstances. The ending was something I didn't see coming and nicely wrapped up the book. An enjoyable read and a good mystery. Recommended.
    • 4/5
      I loved this novel that takes us into a period when times were simple for many people, but an obvious struggle for others. Ava falls into the category of living with hardships as she is a beautiful, divorced, single mother, doing what needs to be done to provide for herself and her young son. Her lifestyle does not fit the perfect cookie-cutter appearance of the rest of her neighbors.The story is really told from the viewpoints of several people. Ava's son, Lewis, being one of them. Lewis really is not very comfortable in his skin and not having a father around to help him deal with things doesn't help. The kids tease him often since Lewis often wears hand-me-downs as Ava can't afford much else. Since Ava is also Jewish they use that as a point of teasing too.Jimmy is Lewis' best friend who happens to be smitten with Ava. When Jimmy ends up missing one day, we also see the story through his sister Rose's eyes. When Jimmy is never found, Rose finds that she can't enjoy things the way she used to. Her mother seems to have forgotten that she is still here, and alive, so Rose starts to question her own worth in the world.Life continues on for all of the characters even though Jimmy is never found. As they stumble through their own existence, pieces relating to his disappearance come to light. I don't want to give any more of this audiobook away as I found it a very enjoyable to experience the way events unfolded. I think Sands did a good job of narrating and especially brought Ava's character to life for me. I will admit that I found it annoying when she narrated the dialogue of male characters, especially the young boys. She made them sound as if they were on drugs or half asleep all the time. So if it weren't for that, I would have given this audiobook a perfect rating of 5!I found myself always looking forward to listening to this book and thoroughly enjoyed the combination of drama and mystery. With themes of perseverance, truth, love, and mystery, I think many of you would enjoy this book as much as I did. I don't hesitate in recommending this book for personal leisure or as a book club selection.
    • 3/5
      So...I don't want compare and yet I'm going to. This was so similar to "Gone Baby, Gone" and yet I thought Dennis LeHane did a much better job. Although I kept reading I had some issues with character development. I wouldn't tell anyone not to read it but I also wouldn't go out of my way to remember to recommend it.
    • 5/5
      Is This Tomorrow by, Caroline Leavitt narrated by, Xe SandsThis is such a unique tale, set in the 50’s divorced mother Ava and her son Lewis find it hard to fit into their Boston suburb because Ava is *Gasp* divorced so she must be a wanton woman after every man in town but that isn’t the case Ava is just trying her best for her and her son. Lewis has his own set of problems being the child of a divorcee’ but there are a brother and sister, Jimmy & Rose, that don’t have a father either and they bond and become best friends until the horrible day when Jimmy goes missing and everything changes.This book is told from the perspective of an adult Lewis who has had his share of relationship problems with not only women he has dated but with his mom too. When the truth comes out about Jimmy’s disappearance things don’t become any easier for Lewis, Rose & Ava.This was a complex story, filled with emotion, it is a family drama and a story of how friendships can change when something bad happens especially when you are young. I truly loved this book it is so well written that even though it isn’t an edge of your seat thriller type book it still grabbed me and I didn’t want to stop reading/listening. There were times when I thought if you people would just talk to each other maybe some of these long held misunderstandings could have been avoided but that is what made this book all the more real, these are real people dealing with huge events in the best way they know how and that isn’t always easy.Who else but Xe Sands could pull off the raw emotion of this book, her narration was perfect she brought the emotions of every character to the forefront and I can’t imagine anyone else doing a better job at it. She was the perfect choice for this book!This was the first book I have read by Leavitt but it will certainly not be the last!4 ½ StarsFull Disclosure—I received this book from the Audiobookjukebox.com and the publisher for a fair and honest review.
    • 4/5
      I zipped through this book mostly because the story was interesting and I cared about the characters. Lewis and his single parent, Ava, move to a Boston suburb after Lewis's parents split. Lewis becomes friends with a brother and sister whose father has died. Rose and Jimmy and Lewis are close and when Jimmy disappears Rose and Jimmy are shocked and frightened. The author deals with Jimmy's disappearance within the framework of the fifties and sixties. The fear of communism and nuclear war causes an atmosphere of tension and fear. The story of these three children and their friendship is beautifully written and is very suspenseful.
    • 4/5
      It's been awhile since I have been in the grips of a good novel. This book was very difficult to set aside (to eat, get some sleep, get to work etc) I just wanted to know more and more details. I really liked the format and the character development. The descriptions brought me right to the neighbourhood setting of the 1950's making all the characters and places come to life. Very enjoyable. I had not been aware of this author until now, but do plan to explore her work. A very satisfying read.
    • 4/5
      Ava doesn't fit in with the neighbors in her 1950s era neighborhood. She's a divorced, single mother to her son, Lewis; she's attractive and doesn't dress like the other women; she has to work to support herself and her son; and she's Jewish. She's a woman ahead of her time. Her son doesn't fit in either, but at least he has his friends - Jimmy and Jimmy's sister, Rose. Then one day, Jimmy vanishes. This story of love and loss is very well-written. Told over the course of several years, the characters were fully developed and very believable. I felt as if I knew them and I liked them. For me, the only flaw was toward the end, where a couple of areas seemed more like a recitation of events whose main purpose was to wrap things up more expediently. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this story and its characters and recommend it.
    • 4/5
      When Lewis best friend Jimmy goes missing, the entire neighborhood is up in arms. Suspicion immediately falls on Lewis mother Ava, a divorced Jewish woman. Finding herself ostracized, Ava tries to keep her family together. Fast forward 10 years, and Jimmy's body is found. Lewis is estranged from his mother and has not heard from Jimmy's sister in years.Overall, this was a well written, engaging book. The characters showed depth and personality. The book did leave me with an incredible feeling of sorrow. Overall, not a happy uplifting read, but t is a book that makes you ponder relationships, family and friendships.
    • 4/5
      1950s - an idealized time of the American Dream in the suburbs with a "Leave it to Beaver" American Family atmosphere. Caroline Leavitt's "Is This Tomorrow" captures the care-free atmosphere and the horror of how the tiny town deals with coming to terms of a child's disappearnce. Lewis, Rose, and Jimmy are the best of friends and when Jimmy disappears, we see how the young interpret his disappearance and how the adults cope with this loss as well. The loss has an enormous impact on the direction of their lives as Rose becomes a school teacher protecting her students and Lewis becomes as a nurse's aid caring for the elderly's most basic needs. Survivor's guilt turned to good deeds. Their pseudo-emotional healing comes crashing down and true acceptance of the past begins. The subplots of Ava's relationships, of Dot's downward spiral, of Brian's abandonment, of Jake's past, sharpen the writer's voice in the telling of the story of loss and it's effect of the future. I received this book through the Early Reader's program and find the time that I spent in this story to be well worth it.
    • 3/5
      Ava and Lewis live in a small town in Boston in the 50's. Ava is divorced so everything she does is suspicious or people dislike her. Lewis is her son, very intelligent and shy. He has 2 best friends, brother and sister, Jimmy and Rose. Jimmy disappears one day and their lives are all turned upside down. This was an okay book but whodunit will surprise you.
    • 4/5
      Excellent read! This was an extremely well written novel, set in the 1950's. It really explored how many of the characters were "outsiders" for one reason or another.
    • 4/5
      Lewis, a 12 year old boy, is growing up in a Boston suburb with his mother, Ava. Lewis acutely feels the lack of his father, who left his mother when he was young, and feels alone and alienated as a Jewish boy from a fatherless home in a neighborhood that appears "Father Knows Best" perfect. He finds two terrific friends in the kids across the street whose father has died, and attaches to them deeply, until, one day, his friend, Jimmy, disappears. The disappearance tears Lewis and Jimmy's sister apart, emotionally and physically, and Lewis' life changes drastically in the years to come. There are a number of twists in the book, so every time I thought I knew how the book would end, it would change. You never quit caring about Lewis and Rose (Jimmy's sister), as well as the fate of Jimmy. It's a heartbreaking book, well told, with no punches pulled. As a mother, I was almost afraid to read the book, knowing that something bad might've happened, but you stick with the characters in a need for your own resolution. Well-written and compelling, this is an amazing book. I loved every word.
    • 4/5
      Ava Lark, a divorced Jewish woman, and her 12-year-old son, Lewis, move into a WASPy 1950s Boston suburb only to be ostracized by their neighbors and sucked into a heart-wrenching ordeal. When Lewis's friend Jimmy goes missing, his disappearance has lifelong consequences for Ava, Lewis, and Rose, Jimmy's sister. By the time Lewis is in his twenties, he is estranged from his mother, while Rose has moved away and become a teacher. The truth of what happens to Jimmy comes out unexpectedly, forcing the three of them to confront truths they've long suppressed. Summary BPLMs Leavitt borrowed the novel's title from a 1950s propaganda pamphlet of the same title.She writes of a time governed by a stable economy, the cold war and paranoia that this new stability would be destroyed by communists. As a period piece,it dots every i and crosses all the ts. But that would not make it a good novel; that would make it a retrospective magazine article. Leavitt spins a story about a tragedy in one middle class neighbourhood during the late 1950s: a sexy single Jewish mom who has gentlemen callers and does not lock her doors is too different to be safe, to be one of us. Too different to be safe; we know something bad will happen. It does. Leavitt's story is sad and realistic, with far reaching trauma. I like that--makes me think about the characters as real people and the implications for my time and place. Ours is still a fear-based culture: global warming, global pandemic, global financial crashes. Diversity advances slowly.Lewis and Rose deserve a sequel!8 out of 10 Recommended to readers of period domestic fiction and literary quality novels.
    • 5/5
      The setting is suburbia in the 1950’s. A Jewish divorcee, Ava, and her son, Lewis, don’t quite fit in with the normal suburban families. After all, whoever heard of a woman without a man? There must be something wrong with her. Lewis is a lonely little boy who longs for his father. His best friends are neighbors Jimmy and Rose (siblings), because they don’t have a father either. One day in the placid suburban neighborhood where neighbors don’t lock their doors, and children reign over the streets, something terrible happens. Jimmy goes missing. This story doesn’t focus a lot on the actual event; it is more about Ava, Lewis and Rose, and to some extent Rose’s mother and how they deal with the aftermath. The book is written in two parts. Part two is some years later when Lewis and Rose are adults and still trying to cope with the event that shattered their childhood.I became totally engrossed in this novel. The characters were so well written they could just leap off the page. This is one book I found hard to put down, and I was totally unprepared for the ending. I won this book as part of the Library Thing members giveaway.
    • 4/5
      Couldn't put this book down. The characters were well developed and the story flowed from beginning to end. I only wish the climax finding out what had happened to Jimmy was played out longer. The story left me wanting more. It depicted 1950's culture very well. Although before my time, I can imagine my grandparents and parents having come across similar people and attitudes. And being from Massachusetts with in laws living in Waltham, I enjoyed the real places placed throughout.
    • 5/5
      A Captivating and heart wrenching must read!From the very start of this story I was completely captivated not only by the story itself but also by the writing style of this author. This is the first read for me from Leavitt, her smooth easy to read style has left me wanting to read more of her writing and I have added her to my list of my favorite authors. Set in the 1950′s, Is This Tomorrow” is one of those stories that just draws the reader in as if they have stepped into at time machine. Suddenly you are in Waltham, a suburb of Boston where Ava Lark a divorced Jewish single mother struggles to pay her bills on a rental with dreams of someday owning that home. Her neighbors are cruel and judgmental as well as her coworkers and Ava doesn’t seem to have a real friend in the world. It is a time where fears of nuclear war run rampant, divorce and single motherhood are frowned upon and Jewish are ostracized.This story centers around the life of Ava, Lewis and his two best friends Jimmy and Rose who are also close neighbors. As an adolescent Jimmy suddenly disappears leaving everyone in terror in a neighborhood where at one time no one locked their doors, no children are now allowed outdoors alone. Rose and Lewis live with the pain and guilt of having failed Jimmy, first after his disappearance and into their adulthood. In the second half of the book the story moves forward about seven years when now as adults Rose and Lewis are again looking for answers to Jimmy’s disappearance after new clues are unearthed.I love how Leavitt took her own background and weaved it into this fascinating tale which moves along through the perspectives of each of the main characters. It is filled with in depth emotion yet has that edge of a mystery that seems may never be solved. The characters are powerful yet stimulating and I easily fell in love with Ava and Rose, two characters that encompass and of most importance to Lewis. Toward the end one gets a sense that in regards to tragedy when friends and family look for closure, sometimes not knowing the truth may be better for all.
    • 4/5
      I give this one 3.5 stars. I never really liked any of the characters and I felt really irritated towards the end. The first 2/3 of the book seemed to drag along and then there were a lot of plot twists crammed in at the end to tie things up neatly. This is my first book by Leavitt and I liked her writing well enough to try another but this one was not as good as I had hoped.
    • 4/5
      I just loved this novel set in suburbia during the 1950s and 1960s. Ava Lark, as a divorced, attractive, Jewish working woman, finds it hard to fit into her neighborhood full of stay-at-home moms. Her son, Lewis, has only his friend, Jimmy, and Jimmy's sister, Rose. When twelve year old Jimmy goes missing, Ava and Lewis are isolated even more. The second half of the book follows Lewis and Rose as young adults. I love Caroline Leavitt's writing. Her characters are well developed and very believable. Good book!