Divide Me by Zero

By Lara Vapnyar,

Book cover of Divide Me by Zero

Book description

A New York Times Editor’s Choice


As a young girl, Katya Geller learned from her mother that math was the answer to everything. Now, approaching forty, she finds this wisdom tested: she has lost the love of her life, she is in the middle of a divorce, and has just…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked Divide Me by Zero as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Math reigned supreme in the USSR. I was never particularly good at it. I had to immigrate to the United States to marry an American nuclear engineer turned math and physics teacher. In Divide Me By Zero the heroine’s widowed mother describes love in mathematical terms. The passage reminded me of my husband. I forced him to listen to me read it out loud to him. “Wow,” he said. "That’s hot." Read this book for the heart-wrenching story—and the hot math.

For Katya Geller’s mother, mathematics is the key to all things, a lesson she effectively imparts to her daughter. But when Katya learns that her mother is sick, she is transported into a past that no longer adds up. Her father’s death and her mother’s subsequent undoing, her childhood in the USSR, her arrival in the US, and her own restless history of love combine for a ride that is wild, hilarious, and deeply affecting. The novel is also a stylistic marvel by a writer unafraid to move in brave and unexpected ways.   

From Courtney's list on really complicated families.

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