Partita

by Barbara Kingsolver

A deeply moving new novel about life and art from one of America’s greatest writers.

Livia Cable has made her peace with her marriage and modest livelihood in the farm country where she grew up, until a shocking phone call from an old lover shakes her to the core. Decades earlier, this man knew her as Livia Bohusz, a music conservatory student estranged from her home and family, uncertain of anything except her passion for music and promise as an extraordinary pianist. His request, now, to see her again stirs up ghosts she’s kept at bay for a lifetime.

Shifting between past and present, Livia’s decision to meet or reject the reunion means confronting step by step, in memories framed as musical dances, the traumas of childhood loss, abandonment, self-immolating passion, and perilous attachment to a man who broke her belief in love and ruptured the course of her life.

With razor-sharp acuity and deep affection, Pulitzer Prize winner Barbara Kingsolver’s unforgettable new novel reflects on class barriers, the risks of ambition, and the timeless love affair between life and art.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Contemporary, Music, Historical, Adult Fiction

352 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication October 6, 2026

About the author

Barbara Ellen Kingsolver is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, essayist, and poet. Her widely known works include The Poisonwood Bible, the tale of a missionary family in the Congo, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, a nonfiction account of her family's attempts to eat locally. In 2023, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for the novel Demon Copperhead. Her work often focuses on topics such as social justice, biodiversity, and the interaction between humans and their communities and environments.
Kingsolver has received numerous awards, including the Dayton Literary Peace Prize's Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award 2011 and the National Humanities Medal. After winning for The Lacuna in 2010 and Demon Copperhead in 2023, Kingsolver became the first author to win the Women's Prize for Fiction twice. Since 1993, each one of her book titles have been on the New York Times Best Seller list.
Kingsolver was raised in rural Kentucky, lived briefly in the Congo in her early childhood, and she currently lives in Appalachia. Kingsolver earned degrees in biology, ecology, and evolutionary biology at DePauw University and the University of Arizona, and worked as a freelance writer before she began writing novels. In 2000, the politically progressive Kingsolver established the Bellwether Prize to support "literature of social change".

Reviews

[Angela M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enduring a traumatic, abusive childhood and a horrible loss, Livia Bohusz has nothing but her dreams, her musical talent and her motivation left as she leaves home and becomes estranged to her family to follow those dreams . During the course of her studies she falls in love with someone who is more dedicated to a cause than to her and endures even more devastating losses that change the course of her life once again.

In this first person, introspective and alternating narrative we see Livia in those early days and decades later as Livia Chase now settled in her life having to face the revelations of family secrets and the decision about whether to reconnect with her past .

Chapters titles are named after classical music compositions or dances , or terms - none of which I was familiar with. I assumed they had meaning in the context of the chapters. That didn’t keep me from being moved by the story reflecting resilience in the face of heartache, self recognition and the knowledge that “salvation comes in its own ways”. A beautiful rendering of how a broken creative spirit rises to the call of what home and family and love really mean. This is my tenth novel by Kingsolver and she never disappoints .

I received a copy of this book from Harper Collins through Edelweiss .

[vinnie]

i have never been so excited to sob

[Liz Hein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Partita is the “Heart the Lover” of 2026 - 4.5 ⭐️

[Colin Jack]

I haven’t read a single page yet, but here’s what I do know: Barbara Kingsolver is about to hit us with heartbreak, class commentary, music metaphors, and at least one character who makes you question all your life choices.

If Demon Copperhead taught me anything, it’s that Kingsolver can make you laugh, gasp, and marvel at the sheer precision of her storytelling. Partita promises all that, but with pianos, ghosts from the past, and a protagonist juggling love, ambition, and long-buried secrets.

I’m here for it. I will be fully invested in Livia Cable’s choices, cheer for her triumphs, and probably celebrate every exquisitely framed sentence.

5/5 stars in advance, because optimism.

[Sophie Gledstone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having read three quarters of this sitting in the sun today (I’m very sunburnt) I’m actually at a loss for words. Shed a lot of tears. Genuinely a 4.5 star read - loses half a star for the first quarter being rather slow soz Barbs x

[Cherie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oh my goodness, I love Barbara Kingsolver. Demon Copperhead, The Poisonwood Bible, Prodigal Summer are all favorites of mine. I was so excited to get an advanced copy of this book.

Livia is a remarkable pianist. Her childhood revolves around the hours she spends perfecting her craft. After receiving a scholarship to a prestigious music school, she leaves home, putting strained relationships with her family behind her. While at the music school, she meets Sigurd, a political activist, who becomes her lover. After a freak accident, Livia is forced to reevaluate what she wanted from life. Years later, a call from Sigurd makes her question her choices and face her past.

This was another 5 ⭐ book for me. I loved Livia and related to her so much - making big decisions that you question, life taking unexpected turns, learning to take the good with the bad. And of course, the book is typical Barbara Kingsolver; brilliantly written, beautiful prose, a story that keeps the reader second guessing, loveable characters. It was amazing!

HOWEVER, I am also a professional pianist. There were so many references to piano techniques, composers, piano repertoire, musical terminology. I wonder if someone who is not musically trained will have the same experience with the novel that I did. Certainly not that they couldn't, I just found that many of the sections discussing her music would be much more impactful if the reader has some sort of musical knowledge. For example, "My triumph in the preliminaries, and then onstage with all those exquisitely black-clad adults, heads cocked, bows tilted at the ready as I threw my whole upper body into the falling minor second, falling minor third of the opening motif, was the peak of my seventeen years." Or, "The Turkish march is all up and up, with its octave-wide, wobbly marches up the scales like a toddler pretending to be a king, and the laughing, trilled B-flat at the top..."

Overall, I LOVED this book and it's likely one that I'll reread again. I hope that others have the same experience that I did with the novel.

Many, many thanks to NetGalley and Faber and Faber for an advanced copy. It's scheduled to be published on October 6, 2026.

[Stephanie]

Inject this into my veins.

[Diana · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve read most of Kingsolver’s books, and she can still surprise me. This novel contains what might be the sexiest scene in the history of literary novels. Remember the movie Ghost. with Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore at the pottery wheel? This romantic encounter is at a piano instead of a wheel, and it SIZZLES.

I love reading about artists, all kinds of artists. In this novel, the main character is Livia, a young woman who is a serious and ambitious pianist. She’s always found refuge in music partly because her family is a mess. Her mother is abusive and unhappy, and also a hoarder, her father is sweet but distant and unwilling to intervene, and her brother ended his life by throwing himself under a train when Livia was eleven.

This probably isn’t as good as Demon Copperhead? Or no, it’s just narrower in its scope. I loved it as much, though, bcause I cared so much about this character, because of the vivid writing, and-- because Kingsolver included a playlist at the beginning of this novel. I used it when I could, and it absolutely heightened the experience of reading. I tried to always stop and play the music she prescribed for certain sections of the book. Why don’t I listen to classical music all the time? The feelings are so big.

The feelings in this novel are big. There are two timelines, one in which Livia is 20, a very serious and ambitious pianist and one in which she lives in the present, 30 years later, and she gets a phone call from the lover she lost all those years ago. In the past, Kingsolver creates a character you care about, and you watch a compelling romance unfold— and then she wrecks her, takes away everything that Livia felt was essential to who she was and flings her back into the messy, depressing lair of her miserable, withholding mother. It’s rough.

Years later, she’s patched together a life, but she still feels broken. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that in the week or so in which the narrative set in the present takes place, she realizes that she’s whole. And in the last scenes of the novel, you see the richness of the life she’s created for herself.

Barbara Kingsolver is very good at endings.

Stray thoughts:

Thinking back, I couldn’t really remember much about music in her other books. I wondered, was she always so conversant with classical music or did she just learn all of this for this book? And it turns out that she actually was a serious student of piano in her youth. This is one where you’ll want to read the author’s notes at the end of the book.

I wanted to help Livia clean out her hoarder mother’s house. I could feel it in my body, my desire to haul out stacks of Raisin Bran boxes, trashbags of grocery store receipts, piles of rinsed and saved cottage cheese containers.

[Susan's Reviews]

The blurb drew me right in! I truly wanted to read this story!



Alas, I was only able to "Wish for It!" (You have to act fast for the more popular titles.)



Many are called, but few are chosen!



Fingers crossed for this one!

[Leonie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Arguably the weakest Kingsolver I’ve read. Fragmented at best, the threads didn’t quite hold together. I’m sorry to say I didn’t connect with the character, and for me the devices used ended up interrupting the flow of the story, leading to me skimming huge sections. 2.5, rounded up

[Sarah (menace mode) · Rating 4 out of 5]

“You want too much when you’re young, it’s just what you do. What we did. Made fire with so much fuel, it had to burn itself out. That is the meanest trick of memory, looking back on a day and imagining it going on and on. A dollar spent is a dollar spent. You can watch that purchase again in your mind’s eye a thousand more times, but it’s not a thousand dollars in anybody’s wallet. It’s none.” This is a fantastic ode to growing old and not living up to your own expectations, and Kingsolver does an exceptional job at making the “passionate doomed love story” the least interesting part of her complex main character’s journey. It’s the catalyst for every main event, but it’s Livia’s internal struggle with the weight of her own expectations for herself that really makes this book sing. I would give this 5 stars, but it didn’t quite ascend to Demon Copperhead levels for me so here we are. That reading playlist she assembled at the beginning though??? BANGER!!! Catch Mozart on my Spotify Wrapped this year….

[Mariana Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not sure my words will do Partita any justice.

It was a beautifully written book, telling the story of Livia, who we meet in middle age. She recounts her terrible upbringing, abusive mother, and a short-lived romance during college and the consequences, especially as her former lover wants to visit her some 30 years later.

Kingsolver used a lot of musical terms which I admittedly didn’t understand the meanings of. That made the reading difficult. The book also came with a listening list. I would try to list to the piece while reading about it. I would find myself forgetting about the book, trying to listen to the story of the song (the sound of horses galloping, bells tolling, etc.)

I may listen to this again when the audiobook comes out. Perhaps it will offer a different experience.

Many thanks to Net Galley for providing me with an advanced reader copy.

[Tracy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful writing - I don’t remember the last time I highlighted a book so much! A bit slow in some parts (unless you know music) but a beautifully told story. Will be thinking about it for a while.

[Creed Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

My goodness kingsolver can write. I actually enjoyed this more than demon copperhead, but I’m not sure that will be the prevailing opinion.

A story of time and life and love and loss

[The Bookish Elf · Rating 5 out of 5]

After the sprawling social fury of Demon Copperhead, the new novel from one of America's most decorated living writers returns to the same Appalachian soil with a smaller cast and a quieter ambition. Partita by Barbara Kingsolver is a memory novel built like a baroque suite, named after the J.S. Bach form that organizes loose dances around a shared key. The structural choice is not ornament. It is the engine.

Livia Cable, a piano teacher on a small Tennessee dairy, gets a phone call from a man she has not heard from in over twenty years. He asks to come see her. He gives her a week to decide. What follows is not a plot in the usual sense but a reckoning, paced through movements titled Allemande, Toccata, Sarabande, Fugue, Pathétique, Da Capo, and Al Fine, with seven numbered preludes braided between them.

The Story, Kept Spoiler-Free

In her younger life, Livia was Livia Bohusz, a scholarship student at a serious music conservatory, the first in her family to leave the tobacco-and-cattle county where she was raised. The seven days she gives herself to decide pull her backward into memories of her brother's early death, a mother she could never please, a roommate she liked more than she loved, and the stranger who arrived one spring with a leftist tabloid and changed the shape of her life. The present-day stakes are quiet. The past-tense stakes are not.

Kingsolver lets none of this arrive as exposition. It arrives the way memory actually arrives, in fragments tied to a pair of empty shoes left under a piano, a song her brother used to whistle, a court report buried in an old envelope. The reader earns the picture in pieces, often turning back a page to confirm that a small detail just turned seismic.

A Country Voice, Tuned for the Page

The first thing readers will notice is the cadence of the narration. Livia speaks the way a smart country woman speaks who has spent years translating Tennessee for Indiana and still prefers, in the end, the original.

A few measures of how the voice carries itself:

A child cannot hate her mother without putting the load-bearing walls of the known world at risk.
Bodies are what we have, underneath all the mind's drama, just pitiable flesh.
College is a cloister; you forget what a thin little spine you are on the big loud bookshelves of the living.

This is plain writing that earns its plainness through years of looking. The voice in Partita by Barbara Kingsolver feels closer to Prodigal Summer and Animal Dreams in temperament than to the wider-angle Poisonwood Bible or the angrier Demon Copperhead. It is older, drier, more interior.

What the Musical Structure Actually Does

Readers who do not know classical piano repertoire may worry the form will lose them. It does not. Kingsolver has placed a Listening List at the front of the novel, naming each piece her characters play, from Chopin's Raindrop Prelude to Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit to the J.S. Bach C Minor Partita that gives the book its title. The list is generous. Reading without it loses very little of the story.

What the musical structure does is something subtler. Each dance carries the emotional shape of its baroque form. The Sarabande, traditionally slow and weighted, carries the heaviest grief. The Toccata moves fast and shows off. The Fugue layers voices that contradict one another and refuses to settle. The Pathétique borrows the wrenching dignity of the Beethoven sonata. By the time the Da Capo arrives, the reader feels in the bones of the prose what it means to repeat a theme in a changed key.

What Lands Hardest

A few elements are the strongest reasons to read this novel:

Class. Few mainstream novelists write working-class rural characters with this much accuracy and this little sentimentality. The arguments between Livia and her lover about meritocracy, and the campus segregation between college kids and shift workers, are the most honest version of that conversation in recent fiction.
The marriage. Livia's husband Charlie is the kind of secondary character who could go badly wrong, the patient good man waiting at home. Instead he is given his own injury, his own gravity, his own surprises. He is among the quiet astonishments of the book.
The mother. A hoarder, a withholder, a woman whose disappointments have run her life. Kingsolver refuses to make her either villain or victim, and what the daughter finds in that wreck of a house arrives with a force the reader does not see coming.
The hand. Livia's right hand is injured early. Kingsolver writes the loss of an artist's instrument with the precision of someone who has lived close to it. The acknowledgments confirm she has.
Where the Book Is Less Sure of Itself

A four-star novel is not a five-star one, and Partita by Barbara Kingsolver has its honest seams. Without spoiling anything:

The pacing in the middle section drags. The cleaning out of the mother's house, while thematically essential, occupies more pages than its narrative weight can quite hold.
The lover, in his older incarnation, occasionally flattens into a vehicle for political argument rather than a man with present-tense desires. He is sharper in memory than in the now.
The density of classical-music vocabulary, while translated patiently, will ask some readers for more patience than they bargained for from a literary novel.
The closing notes are tender. A few readers will find them earned, others a touch too soft for a story that has been bracingly hard up to that point.

These are not fatal flaws. They are the small frictions that keep a very fine novel from being an unimpeachable one.

Who Should Read This Novel

Readers who loved the interior, memory-soaked work of Olive Kitteridge or Crossing to Safety will feel at home here. Readers who came for the social anger of Demon Copperhead may be surprised by the smaller scope, but rewarded if they let the book set its own tempo. Anyone who has ever played a hard piece badly, lost a brother, married the wrong man, married the right one, or stood at the edge of a life they did not pick will find a sentence here that finds them back.

Coda

The Toni Morrison line at the front of the book gives away the thesis: sometimes you do not survive whole, you survive in part. Partita by Barbara Kingsolver is six hundred and some pages of evidence that the part you do survive can still make a sound worth hearing. It is not her loudest novel and it may not be her most plot-driven, but for readers willing to slow down and listen, it is a generous and quietly major piece of work from a writer who is still writing as if every sentence has to earn its keep.

[Kristina Nichole]

JUST FOUND OUT ABOUT THIS......



DEMON COPPERHEAD 5 stars forever

[Ryan Davison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Early in Barbara Kingsolver’s unbelievably moving novel, we are told, “A partita is a composition made of many parts with different paces and moods. You’ll usually have a prelude, a thrilling allemande, maybe a slow, sexy sarabande—the contrast is the point. The parts are all different, and the artist’s work is to make them all add up to something that feels whole.” She chose the perfect title for a work that hurls the reader across a vast literary and emotional journey.

Partita is told by Livia Cable, a musical soul who has never quite felt whole. Livia is somewhere past middle age at the book’s opening, living with her kindhearted husband in a farmhouse next door to her childhood home. We know that her parents are dead, as is her older brother, Cyrus, who stepped in front of a train when she was eleven. Also, she lives with an unexplained hand injury, but much more on that later. A phone call from the past elicits an explosion of repressed feeling, and we are thrust into the head and heart of a twenty-year-old piano prodigy at The Indiana University School of Music.

Young Livia is mostly content, living in front of the piano, mastering impossible pieces. Her brother’s suicide did little to slow her development or ambition, but turned her mother into a hopeless hoarder. She’s dating a fellow student at the musical conservatory, but the firmament of her world collapses when she meets, and falls completely in love with, strapping Sigurd. It is his phone call 27 years later that brings older Livia to tell the full story of her younger self.

The novel begins as a gripping coming of age adventure, turns traumatic, moves into family drama territory, and wraps up with themes unlike any of the previous. Flashbacks between younger and older Livia are wonderfully smooth. Cleaning out the house of her dead mother, she uncovers secrets long hidden about herself and brother Cyrus, which serve as flash points to the later story. The finale is every bit as strong as the beginning and middle, a powerhouse in totality. Added bonus: musical insight is worked into these pages with astonishing clarity. Chopin, Mozart, Beethoven, Bach - Partita is a ticket to the inner world of how a musician gropes through a piece of music with their soul.

Incredible stuff, highly recommended to fans of music and storytelling. This work well surpasses Demon Copperhead in its power and achievement.

Thanks to NetGalley and Harper for a review copy

[Staci · Rating 5 out of 5]

Music is "a language we're born knowing. To be blessed with its full fluency is a treasure."

I'm not lucky enough or learned enough to be fully fluent in the language of music. Partita will sing on another level for those who are, but there's plenty here for the rest of us.

Livia is a musical prodigy who earns a scholarship to a prestigious piano conservatory at the University of Indiana. She packs her bags, and baggage, and moves from her small-town farm in Tennessee to begin a new life. It doesn't take long for Livia to see the chasm that divides urban and rural America, and she feels just as out of place in her new world as her old.

The lyrical language is classic Kingsolver. It's also surprisingly sensual, and at times even comical. I laughed out loud twice: the sandwich, the bridge. I appreciated the dry wit of Livia's hindsight.

There are strong themes of social justice woven into the story, especially the distribution of wealth. Kingsolver portrays rural Americans with the honesty, respect, and dash of awe they deserve. The characters are flawed, maddening, brilliant, and so very real. I wanted more for them: more choices, more time, more art, and at the very least more health insurance.

The city kids from Livia's college days needed many lessons that couldn't be found in a lecture hall. It's unfortunate the charactes from both worlds couldn't grasp that it takes all kinds of wisdom to make our world go 'round. I wanted the man who composes classical music to realize how much he can learn from a dairy farmer. I wanted the dairy farmers to let medical experts heal their injuries: seen and unseen. I wanted them all to judge less, trust more, and assume nothing. If only their foresight was as perfect as Livia's pitch, they could save each other.

And for the love: could they all quit hoarding what doesn't matter and withholding what does? Because we all know what happens to a dream deferred…

Obviously this one is going to stick with me for a while. Five star read for me, as is pretty much everything Barbara Kingsolver writes, whether it's an epic novel or an Instagram caption. Thanks to HarperCollins and NetGalley and for the ARC of this title, which will be released Oct. 6, 2026.

Side note: if you loved Bel Canto by Ann Patchett, then Partita is a must.

#partita #barbarakingsolver #harpercollins #netgalley #ARC

[Claire Talbot · Rating 5 out of 5]

I almost decided not to read Partita because of the title, subject matter, and description, but I'm so glad I ignored my first impression.

The opening sections are steeped in musical terminology, and the chapters are named after musical forms—Overture, Prelude I, Allemande, and more. There's even a curated playlist, which I'd love to listen to while rereading the novel in print.

At its heart, Partita is a powerful exploration of the choices we make for love—or lust—and the extraordinary consequences those decisions can have over the course of a lifetime. It also examines family trauma, buried secrets, and the ways guilt can distort our understanding of the truth.

The story follows Livia, whose lifelong passion for music begins at the age of six, when playing the piano awakens something profound within her. Her family is shattered by the suicide of her older brother, Cyrus, and each member copes differently. Livia throws herself into music, her father buries himself in work on his dairy farm and postal route, and her mother becomes increasingly bitter, critical, and overwhelmed by compulsive hoarding.

When Livia leaves for college, she experiences her first serious romance. Despite being in a committed relationship, she becomes captivated by a mysterious young man she notices across campus. Her growing obsession leads to a series of choices that shape the rest of her life.

The novel opens thirty years later. Livia is now married to her former neighbor, Charlie, when she receives an unexpected phone call from Sigurd—the man whose arrival in college irrevocably altered her future. From there, the story moves back in time to reveal what happened and how that single phone call reverberates through the present. I won't spoil the journey, but once the narrative shifted into the past, I couldn't put the book down. I became completely absorbed in Livia's story, her complicated family dynamics, and the emotional weight of the choices she made.

Even with very little musical knowledge, I found Partita compelling, emotionally rich, and impossible to stop reading. The music enhances the novel, but it's the deeply human story that makes it memorable.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

[MundiNova · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beauty doesn't have to be big to be significant or life-changing.

It took me about a month to read the first half of this book, and then less than a day to read the second half. I foolishly didn't trust Kingsolver to deliver. That was my mistake.

This isn't like The Poisonwood Bible or Demon Copperhead. It's not epic or spanning space and time. It's big, but in the way the smallness of a life is big. Like the moments of sitting out on the front porch and listening to good music with someone you've shared a life with.

It's a true work of art. There are scenes and moments that build upon each other, like a good piece of music. Coming back, repeating. There are revelations that are surprising. If you enjoyed Ann Patchett's Tom Lake, then you'll really love this book.

So, if I'm singing such high praise now, why did it take me a month to read ~150 pages?

Well, Livia was kinda annoying and single-minded in the beginning. She made stupid choices that only a young woman can make. Things that reminded me too much of myself during my college days. I wanted her to treat herself better, see the people around her for who they really are. But that's what's needed for great character development. Characters need to grow and learn. Then there was the relationship with her mother ...

This is going to be one hell of a book hangover.

Story: 4 stars
Character Development: 5 stars
Writing: 10 out of 5 stars

[Ruth Brookes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Handed an absolute book hangover by Kingsolver!

I was lucky enough to get an early copy of Partita, her new novel, due out in October. It’s gorgeous! Of course it is. Nuanced, deep and tender.

The story of Livia Cable, married and living on a farm in rural Appalachia, where she grew up. We meet her in the midst of quietly clearing out her mother’s house. Unmoored by an unexpected phonecall from an old lover. Which takes us back Livia’s childhood.

After the tragic death of her brother, Livia Bohusz found solace and meaning in an all consuming love of music. An exceptional talent, her extraordinary piano playing earns her a music scholarship. It takes her away from the family farm to a thrillingly unfamiliar world of privilege, ambition and class barriers, and an electrifying passion which changes everything.

A slow grower, gentle and intimate, lyrical and wise. This is a story of youthly passions, family secrets, grief and loss. How we go on when the future we dreamed of is no longer possible and what life we build from the broken pieces.

Examining what it is to be loved and known, Kingsolver’s writing is compassionate, forgiving, tender and shows such depth of understanding of the human condition. Our flaws, failings and struggles to release the regret and buried baggage of our lives.

Partita is a musical term. It’s a suite of dances (originally from the baroque period) usually for a solo instrument. Variations on a theme. And Kingsolver used this framing device to weave a story from Livia’s memories. A lonely childhood, loss and life-changing love affair, all steps of the dance which make up her life. Seen individually, it’s fascinating, as a whole, it’s astonishing, profound and deeply moving. And isn’t that true for us all?

“‘The point of art is to help you like your life better.’
I felt a throb at my throat.
This was all I needed, back then.
Somebody to tell me this.”

Like I said, book hangover.
Do read it. It’s beautiful.

[Candace Siegle, Greedy Reader 2.0 · Rating 4 out of 5]

A new novel by Barbara Kingsolver is always an event, and one that includes music, the Appalachians, and trauma is something not to be missed. Partita tells the story of Livia Bohusz, a phenomenally gifted pianist who is growing up in a small Eastern Tennessee town where she does not have a piano or supportive parents. Her brother and father understand somewhat but her mother is dead set against music, college or anything that might make Livia too "stuck up" to marry a local boy. But she does go to college at Indiana University's College of Music where her talent flourishes and she is able to begin exploring a new world. She falls madly in love with a non-musician, and tragedy strikes not once, but twice. What will her life be like now?

Kingsolver writes gorgeously about music through the eyes of someone who understands it in a way most of us never could. She gets the judging/embracing culture of small town Southern life. But Partita includes aspects that I felt dragged down Demon Copperhead, that one-thing-after-the- other plotting that made me mutter, "really? What next?" I could not latch onto Livia's love for Sigurd, the didactic labor organizer who is just too much. Once Sigurd's out of the picture the novel takes flight with Kingsolver's wonderful sense of place, character, and heart. Partita comes to a satisfying, if somewhat sentimental, end, that I really loved.

There are lots of triggers in this novel, but it wouldn't be Barbara Kingsolver if there weren't. Thanks to Edelweiss + for a digital review copy of this novel> Here is my honest review.

[Matt Stone · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a big fan of @barbara.kingsolver and enjoyed PARTITA, her newest novel out this October. I believe it is her finest work since THE LACUNA (which you should totally check out if you haven’t read it).

The story is told in two separate segments, one with the narrator as a mature adult, the other a retrospective of her college years. In both, the narrator is faced with themes of loss: lost love, lost innocence, lost loved ones, and lost beauty. Of the two, the college narrative is where the book really sings.

Kingsolver really did her homework on musicians and classical music. She writes with the fluency of a musician; she deserves major kudos for having a merry band of music makers willing to help. I also appreciated the track list on the first page which covers each major piece depicted in the novel.

Likewise, the prose sings. Kingsolver is at the height of her lyrical power. Nearly every page left me breathless from the beauty of it all.

That said, PARTITA is not without flaws. In true Kingsolver fashion, the political overwhelms the story at times. While never quite approaching a heavy handed lecture on Marx, at times I started to skim to get back to what was really happening. Still, Kingsolver skillfully works political criticism into the narrative without overdoing it—while she occasionally toes that line, she never crosses it.

All in all, this is another splendid entry from one of America’s most important writers. Book clubs will love PARTITA, but so will solo readers already familiar with Kingsolver’s work and general style and message.

[Amy Hesterman · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars Musical prodigy and college student Livia Cable is headed out of TN, to IN, with the blessing of a fresh start away from her domineering mother, emotionally absent father, and the pain of the horrific death of her older brother. She recklessly falls for Sigurd, a "can't hold me down" political activist, who breaks her heart into a million pieces. The fall out from this relationship is GRAND. And the reader cannot help but feel sorrow for the life-long ramifications of having him so selfishly exit her life.

The storyline is a little difficult to follow as it bounces back and forth between present day and past..each chapter named after a musical term that I didn't know the significance/meaning of. (That might have helped me to distinguish whether chapter was past or present) Although there are obviously countless musical references that will go over most readers' heads, even with 4 years of high school band ;) , the heart of Livia Cable will resonate with most readers. Will they feel as much compassion for her as readers did for Demon Cooperhead? I'm just not sure. I didn't. But that may be a female to female thing.

Thank you to Edelweiss and Faber and Faber for the opportunity to read this for an honest review.

[Linda Grana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just finished Barbara Kingsolver's newest novel "Partita", and am needing to just sit with its lingering aftermath. I went into this book blindly, not knowing anything about it other than it most likely had something to do with music based on the cover. I was almost halfway through the book before I was even able to guess much else about it. But THAT's what I love about Kingsolver's storytelling! She quite often begins by taking you for a ride—you have no idea where you're going—and then things begin to come together, leaving you questioning how it is you feel you've entered a whole new story.
This tale of an extremely talented young woman, an aspiring pianist, who suffers two devastating losses early on, becomes a heartfelt story of forgiveness, healing, and acceptance. It's a tale of brothers and sisters, pianos, classical music, a dog's devotion, farm life, and choices and sacrifices made. Though not sure how I felt about it initially, this novel blossomed into one that captured my heart and will stay there for a long time.
Many thanks to Harper and NetGalley for allowing me to be an early reader of this book.

[Mallory Moyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The point of art is to help you like your life better.”

Livia escapes a difficult childhood via a scholarship to train as a pianist. Her intense romance with Sigurd leads to two major catastrophes with physical and emotional fallout. Decades later, she is back in her hometown, and Sigurd calls to say he wants to stop by for a visit. The narrative bounces between young Livia and older Livia, exploring how the tragedies from her youth have shaped the woman she becomes.

(A) I really liked this - Barbara Kingsolver is SUCH A GOOD WRITER oh my goodness.
(B) I did not love it - I’m holding it up to Demon Copperhead, which is a Masterpiece, and Partita is comparatively Really Quite Excellent.
(C) I will absolutely recommend people read it - this is about the essentialness of music to memory and emotion, and what we need to muster in order to survive the horrors life puts us through. I think Livia starts out believing that “everything happens for a reason” and by the end realizes instead that… everything happens. Not trying to introduce spoilers, but Partita has a quietly healing ending which could be unsatisfying for some but felt true to the life Livia finds herself living.

[Second Chapter Books · Rating 3 out of 5]

Barbara Kingsolver's writing is undeniably beautiful, and it's easy to see why so many readers admire her prose. Every sentence is carefully crafted, and the emotional weight behind the story is evident.

Unfortunately, this one just wasn't for me.

At nearly a quarter of the way through the book, I found myself waiting for the story to truly begin. Much of the narrative focuses on the main character's grief, memories, and experiences studying classical piano, but I struggled to find enough momentum to keep me fully engaged. While these moments are thoughtfully written, the pacing felt too slow for my personal reading taste.

I can absolutely understand why readers who enjoy literary, character-driven novels will appreciate this book. If you love immersive prose and stories that prioritize introspection over plot, this may be a great fit. I simply prefer novels with a stronger sense of forward movement.

Although this wasn't a favorite for me, I appreciate the opportunity to read and review it. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is pitch-perfect--everything I wanted Sally Rooney's Intermezzo to be, tenfold. In some ways, this reminded me of what I loved about A Little Life and Rebecca Makkai's I Have Some Questions for You and The Great Believers, while still being absolutely brilliant, original, and propulsively readable. I couldn't stop reading--even though I wanted to draw out the experience of this sprawling yet intimate story.

While so often great books (Mrs. Dalloway!) are remarkable for their first sentence and how that becomes an expanding radius of sorts, this one has a final sentence that will stay with readers and make them want to experience the story all over again.

[Linden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Livia is a farm girl with exceptional talent who gets a university music scholarship. While at school, she meets a seemingly irresistible man and that is when her run of bad luck starts. She is injured, almost dies, and can no longer play the piano well. She goes home to Tennessee to a dying father, a cruel mother, and the memory of her beloved older brother. There are numerous musical references in the novel, including insight into the title: “A partita will never be all happy rondos, or all andantes in a minor key. You’ll usually have a prelude, a thrilling allemande, maybe a slow sexy sarabande—the contrast is the point. The parts are all different, and the artist’s work is to make them all add up to a something that feels whole.” Although her life has taken an unexpected course, she realizes that “surviving in broken parts is not such a bad thing.” Thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for the opportunity to review this advance copy.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy. My thoughts are all over the place, and probably this is a 3.5 read, but I'm rounding up just because much of the writing was so beautiful. But it was also bloated in places--could definitely have used some tightening--and one thing that annoyed me to no end is that it's written in the first person by someone who keeps telling us something tragic happened to her. But we don't learn what that tragedy was until well into the book. If I'm in the narrator's head, I should know that. As it stands, I figured out what it was long before the narrator told me. Consequently, what should have been a major incident in the book was anticlimactic. Kingsolver has a lot to say about people and their relationships with one another, whether tied by blood or not, but it could have been said more concisely and smoothly.