"Writer-to-watch Lauryn Chamberlain's sophmore novel, a paperback original, is a poignant, incisive story about life's "Sliding Doors" moments; it explores the disproportionate impact that the seemingly small choices we make in our youth have on the rest of our lives, jumping boldly through the years in alternating points of view, moving at the same unforgiving pace as do those precious, confusing years between college and real life. This is a novel of epic friendship. We meet Clarissa, Rachel, Nate, and Dev in their last year at a liberal arts college, where these four friends are preparing to take their first steps into adulthood. Then they do. We follow them for fifteen years, through their twenties and then their thirties as their lives change and complicate, as do the ties between them. Two find fame, two sacrifice idealism for a secure paycheck. Two are locked in a will-they-won't-they holding pattern. Some of them mature into fabulous human beings. Others lose their footing, and let their friends down with catastrophic results. This novel is a meditation on life and friendship, and exemplifies Lauryn's talent for writing utterly relatable stories and lovable characters. Who We Are Now examines way that our early relationships encourage us forward and sometimes hold us back. It questions how the seemingly small decisions we make in our youth send us down wildly diverging paths. In other words, this is a perfect novel for the current zeitgeist, as we all assess and reassess our priorities in a fast-changing world"-- Provided by publisher
Lauryn Chamberlain Livres


An insightful, keenly observant debut about the power and complexities of a lifelong female friendship. Engrossing and wildly relatable. -Carola Lovering, author of Too Good to Be True A bighearted story with deep roots in a complicated old friendship . . . [A] moving tale of love and life-changing choices. -Hannah Orenstein, author of Head Over Heels A timeless story about female friendship with an incredibly timely hook that makes it perfect for the millennial reader Jules O'Brien and Michelle Davis have been best friends since third grade, when Jules and her single mother moved from Cleveland to the small Alabama town where Michelle's family has lived for generations. Now in their midtwenties, the childhood friends live miles and worlds apart. When Jules agrees to be the maid of honor in Michelle's wedding, she quickly realizes just how different the two have become. Over the years, their passions and politics have diverged, and in the middle of wedding-planning squabbles, they feel more like strangers than the sisters they once were. When their friendship reaches a breaking point, Jules will have to decide if the bond they once had as girls is strong enough to reunite the women they are now. Is shared history enough to carry their friendship through a lifetime? Disarming and wildly relatable, this novel is perfect for anyone who knows the complex love we have for our friends from home. It will have you calling the Michelle to your Jules immediately to discuss