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Still True
One summer evening, Lib Hanson is confronted by her painful past when Matt Marlow, the forty-year-old son she abandoned as an infant, shows up on her porch. Fiercely independent, Lib has never revealed her son’s existence—or her previous marriage—to her husband, Jack. Married nearly three decades but living in separate houses (to the confusion but acceptance of their neighbors), they enjoy an ease and comfort together in small-town Anthem, Wisconsin. But Jack is a stickler for honesty, and Lib’s long-dormant secret threatens to unravel their lives.
When ten-year-old Charlie Taylor arrives at Jack’s workshop shortly thereafter, he’s not the first kid in town to need help with a flat tire, and Jack gladly makes the repair to his bike. The Taylors are new to Anthem, and Jack soon discovers that Charlie and his mom, Claire, are struggling to fit in, even as Charlie’s dad, Dan, is thriving in his new job. Extending friendship and kindness, as well as introductions around the local café, Jack assumes a grandfatherly role. What he doesn’t see is the drinking that Claire hides from everyone, or the secret son that Lib has allowed to move into her house and the growing attraction between Claire and Matt. When the terrible events of a fateful evening threaten everyone’s carefully crafted lives, Jack, Lib, and their new friends must each determine the value of truth for the ones they love.
When ten-year-old Charlie Taylor arrives at Jack’s workshop shortly thereafter, he’s not the first kid in town to need help with a flat tire, and Jack gladly makes the repair to his bike. The Taylors are new to Anthem, and Jack soon discovers that Charlie and his mom, Claire, are struggling to fit in, even as Charlie’s dad, Dan, is thriving in his new job. Extending friendship and kindness, as well as introductions around the local café, Jack assumes a grandfatherly role. What he doesn’t see is the drinking that Claire hides from everyone, or the secret son that Lib has allowed to move into her house and the growing attraction between Claire and Matt. When the terrible events of a fateful evening threaten everyone’s carefully crafted lives, Jack, Lib, and their new friends must each determine the value of truth for the ones they love.
280 pages, Paperback
First published September 27, 2022
41 people are currently reading
1626 people want to read
About the author
Maggie Ginsberg
2 books123 followersMaggie Ginsberg is a writer, editor and author in Wisconsin. Her debut novel, Still True, was published by the University of Wisconsin Press in September 2022 and won the Wisconsin Library Association’s 2023 WLA Literary Award for Fiction. It was the honorable mention selection for the 2022 Edna Ferber Fiction Book Award, one of four finalists for the Chicago Writers Association 2023 Book of the Year, a 2023 Midwest Book Awards silver medal winner in the Literary/Contemporary/Historical Fiction category, and one of three finalists for the Women’s Fiction Writers Association STAR Award for Outstanding Debut.
Maggie is also a nonfiction writer and editor who published hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles throughout her career, earning numerous honors from the City Regional Magazine Association, the American Society of Journalists and Authors and the Milwaukee Press Club. She is the former managing editor at Madison Magazine and now works full-time as a writer at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
She was born in Minnesota and has lived in Wisconsin since 1985, where she is currently at work on her second and third novels.
Maggie is also a nonfiction writer and editor who published hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles throughout her career, earning numerous honors from the City Regional Magazine Association, the American Society of Journalists and Authors and the Milwaukee Press Club. She is the former managing editor at Madison Magazine and now works full-time as a writer at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
She was born in Minnesota and has lived in Wisconsin since 1985, where she is currently at work on her second and third novels.
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November 6, 2025The author's mom told me this was the best book she'd ever read.
Also Goodreads says I've read it three times but I swear it feels more like 367.
;)
Also Goodreads says I've read it three times but I swear it feels more like 367.
;)
August 26, 2022
This book is one of the gems of the season. The author has captured the sorrows in joys of deep relationships that are built on love and trust even though privacy and secrets abound. Her characters resonate in the way master authors know how to do. She balances likability. With just the right amount of dysfunction to make them interesting. You will not be disappointed with this book.
August 16, 2022
A masterful, lyrical novel set in rural Wisconsin, Still True tells a simple story of complex characters whose lives interweave in poignant, engaging ways. Jack and Lib have been married thirty years and are still passionately in love, though each maintains a separate home miles apart. Claire, Dan, and their boy Charlie are new residents of the small town and Claire is suffocating in a marriage that has sapped her spark for life, as she turns increasingly to alcohol to shut down the voices inside her head telling her there is more to life than this. And then the inevitable stranger comes to town in the form of Matt, Lib’s son, whom she abandoned forty years before and has hidden from Jack all this time.
I gave myself the luxury of reading only a few chapters of this wonderful book a night, hoping this story would never end but just go on spooling out, filling my thoughts, touching my emotions, feeding me bit by bit the saga of these endearing, enduring people who came to mean so much to me. In a sense, very little happens in the sense of dramatic action scenes, yet in the way of great literature, everything does—jealousy, hurt, joy, connection, comfort, rage, connection, and ultimately forgiveness.
If you’re a reader who’s tired of characters who come off as caricatures, plots too convoluted to ring true, and stories that veer away from exploring genuine human emotions in favor of off-the-cuff superficial fluff, this is not the book for you. But if you’re a fan of Larry Watson, William Kent Krueger, and loved Chris Whitaker’s We Begin at the End, this belongs on your TBR list.
I gave myself the luxury of reading only a few chapters of this wonderful book a night, hoping this story would never end but just go on spooling out, filling my thoughts, touching my emotions, feeding me bit by bit the saga of these endearing, enduring people who came to mean so much to me. In a sense, very little happens in the sense of dramatic action scenes, yet in the way of great literature, everything does—jealousy, hurt, joy, connection, comfort, rage, connection, and ultimately forgiveness.
If you’re a reader who’s tired of characters who come off as caricatures, plots too convoluted to ring true, and stories that veer away from exploring genuine human emotions in favor of off-the-cuff superficial fluff, this is not the book for you. But if you’re a fan of Larry Watson, William Kent Krueger, and loved Chris Whitaker’s We Begin at the End, this belongs on your TBR list.
September 2, 2022
I'm a 73 year old male. My favorite authors are Anne Tyler, Richard Russo and John Updike (Rabbit Run series). I love these writers for both their story telling and character creations. "Still True" has marvelous characters and a warm, wonderful story. This book is a winner!
September 2, 2022
This is an amazing debut novel. The characters are so well-defined, you feel like they are your neighbors. Small town Wisconsin and a couple with a deep, abiding love for each other though they live in separate homes provide spaces and relationships you simply want to wrap yourself up in and stay with them for a good, long time. I did not want this book to end!
September 14, 2022
I can’t put into words how much I love this book! Just read all the praise pages from other authors and I nod in agreement with everything they say. Moving, gorgeously written,gripping, authentic, astonishing — I could go on and on! And I can’t let go of these characters and their truth, and I can’t stop reading it! Love, love, love this beautiful book.
November 18, 2022
Damn. Maggie Ginsberg can write. From describing the small midwest town to creating characters that feel like real people I know, this book was a treat to read. The tension is high as three families start to intertwine in their storylines when long kept secrets and addiction issues collide.
When the people you love most in the world lie to you, what do you hold on to as "still true"? That's the question that gets asked as choices old and new converge. With Ginsberg's characters spanning the age of elementary school student through nearly 60 years of age, she proves that it doesn't matter how old you get, relationships are still the most fragile thing in the world. Yet, there's more than one way to make amends.
Emotionally real, honestly written, Still True is a novel that holds you within its pages, in the heart of the book.
When the people you love most in the world lie to you, what do you hold on to as "still true"? That's the question that gets asked as choices old and new converge. With Ginsberg's characters spanning the age of elementary school student through nearly 60 years of age, she proves that it doesn't matter how old you get, relationships are still the most fragile thing in the world. Yet, there's more than one way to make amends.
Emotionally real, honestly written, Still True is a novel that holds you within its pages, in the heart of the book.
September 2, 2022
Still true is a wonderfully crafted book that will immediately hook you with its exquisite prose, but you’ll soon be swept away by the story while falling in love with the characters who soon become such important people in your life that you begin to identify with each one of them in your own particular ways as you experience what they do through the secrets keep and people they love. If you’re lucky, you’ll stop every once in a while to take in how wonderfully crafted the whole thing is, and before you know it, you realize you’ll soon be missing these characters and the important role they’ve played in your life.
It’s also just a great story. A real page turner. You can’t not love this book!
It’s also just a great story. A real page turner. You can’t not love this book!
October 9, 2022
At the core, this is a beautifully written book about people and relationships. I know I’m biased because I’ve been following Maggie’s non-fiction writing for years, but this book caught me in all the feels. As a person who grew up in small town WI - it resonates. As someone who’s has questioned my relationship with alcohol, ir resonate. As someone who feels deeply, it resonates.
November 15, 2022
Beautiful writing. A lesson in writing interiority. Gorgeous cover. Great author. Who could ask for more?
May 26, 2023
I read half of this and gave up. One of the main characters, Claire was drinking constantly and wishing for an affair with her coworker, Matt. Not my kind of book. I did like Jack & Lib, and that’s why I stuck with it for so long.
January 30, 2025
What a story! Such lovely writing, character development, and story line. Highly recommend!
EDIT: I've been ruminating on this story for a couple of days now and I still can't pinpoint exactly what pulled me into the fictional town of Anthem, WI and become so engrossed with the equally fictional, albeit fully realized, characters of Lib, Jack, Charlie, Claire and all the rest of townsfolk who contribute so much to the story. Their lives and histories are honest, believable, and conflicted. When all the people of this town come together, bringing their past, and current, lives together, the reader is thrust into the story in an organic way, finding fault and favor with each Anthem resident. The ending may not surprise readers (part of it I figured out, part was shocking to me), but the lingering debates of Still True will stay with you for some time.
EDIT: I've been ruminating on this story for a couple of days now and I still can't pinpoint exactly what pulled me into the fictional town of Anthem, WI and become so engrossed with the equally fictional, albeit fully realized, characters of Lib, Jack, Charlie, Claire and all the rest of townsfolk who contribute so much to the story. Their lives and histories are honest, believable, and conflicted. When all the people of this town come together, bringing their past, and current, lives together, the reader is thrust into the story in an organic way, finding fault and favor with each Anthem resident. The ending may not surprise readers (part of it I figured out, part was shocking to me), but the lingering debates of Still True will stay with you for some time.
August 27, 2023
This book was gifted to me by the author when we connected in a mutual group, the Women’s Fiction Writers Association, and I’m so glad she did! I had actually checked the book out from the library a few months prior but got busy and had to return it without reading it, so it was already on the top of my reading list.
It primarily follows two families in the small town of Anthem, Wisconsin, but the crux of the story involves Lib, an older woman who seems to have her life in perfect order. She is happily married with no (apparent) children and spends her days with the land she grew up on. Until one day she is visited by the 40 year old son she abandoned when she was a child herself.
First, the story. Not only did I love being in the town and learning everything about these amazing characters, but the plot had me cruising through the book, finishing it in just 3 days! The small town life, where it seems easy to hide but ultimately everyone knows your business, keeps the suspense bubbling just below the surface where I waited for it to erupt.
Second and most importantly, the writing.🙌🏼 I am absolutely in love with this author and she is destined for amazing things. (I said this about Taylor Jenkins Reed and was right, and I know I’ll be right about Maggie Ginsberg!) Every single word was purposeful, and I found myself reading sentences over again just to bask in their glory. I honestly had to put the book down to sigh out loud or run to my husband and read the passage.
I cannot wait for Maggie’s next book. I am a forever fan. And I’m just going to say this: Maggie Ginsberg is Ann Patchett status. I would give this book 6 out of 5 stars if that made sense in this world.
It primarily follows two families in the small town of Anthem, Wisconsin, but the crux of the story involves Lib, an older woman who seems to have her life in perfect order. She is happily married with no (apparent) children and spends her days with the land she grew up on. Until one day she is visited by the 40 year old son she abandoned when she was a child herself.
First, the story. Not only did I love being in the town and learning everything about these amazing characters, but the plot had me cruising through the book, finishing it in just 3 days! The small town life, where it seems easy to hide but ultimately everyone knows your business, keeps the suspense bubbling just below the surface where I waited for it to erupt.
Second and most importantly, the writing.🙌🏼 I am absolutely in love with this author and she is destined for amazing things. (I said this about Taylor Jenkins Reed and was right, and I know I’ll be right about Maggie Ginsberg!) Every single word was purposeful, and I found myself reading sentences over again just to bask in their glory. I honestly had to put the book down to sigh out loud or run to my husband and read the passage.
I cannot wait for Maggie’s next book. I am a forever fan. And I’m just going to say this: Maggie Ginsberg is Ann Patchett status. I would give this book 6 out of 5 stars if that made sense in this world.
April 1, 2024
"Maybe this was what grace felt like. Maybe the very best things were too big and good to be understood. Maybe what was holy, by definition, couldn't be truly comprehended by mortal man. Maybe that was what he'd always sensed in the two of them, and in everything they held dear: that together they were so much bigger than the sum of their respective working parts."
Oh.
My.
Heart.
This book was beautiful! Maggie Ginsberg has gorgeously written a debut novel that is laden with dynamic characters, rich atmosphere, and stunning prose. This is the type of book that you open the cover and crawl inside, experiencing it as if you are part of the story.
I was completely enthralled with these achingly flawed people. I am talking fully fleshed and incredibly vivid personas. I felt as if these were my neighbors, my community, my friends. There was a specific place in the story where I actually held my hand on the page. I could not bring myself to turn it. The story was standing at the edge of a precipice, and I was terrified to continue. I knew there were a myriad of ways my heart could be shattered into a million pieces, and I wasn't prepared. To be that committed. That invested in the characters you're reading about. That folks, is a gift of magic. And this author? This author has given us that magical gift.
This is a book for those who have a true love for language, an appreciation for the cadence of author craft, and the pleasure of settling in and bathing in the simplicity of the story. This is a book for those who love books and relish in reading them.
Final thoughts? If you are a fan of Ann Patchett, Larry Watson, or Ivan Doig, you will not want to miss this one! Dive on in and meander through some small town secrets, found family, redemption, and love. I absolutely adored this book...Welcome to Anthem, Wisconsin. I hope you enjoy your stay.
Oh.
My.
Heart.
This book was beautiful! Maggie Ginsberg has gorgeously written a debut novel that is laden with dynamic characters, rich atmosphere, and stunning prose. This is the type of book that you open the cover and crawl inside, experiencing it as if you are part of the story.
I was completely enthralled with these achingly flawed people. I am talking fully fleshed and incredibly vivid personas. I felt as if these were my neighbors, my community, my friends. There was a specific place in the story where I actually held my hand on the page. I could not bring myself to turn it. The story was standing at the edge of a precipice, and I was terrified to continue. I knew there were a myriad of ways my heart could be shattered into a million pieces, and I wasn't prepared. To be that committed. That invested in the characters you're reading about. That folks, is a gift of magic. And this author? This author has given us that magical gift.
This is a book for those who have a true love for language, an appreciation for the cadence of author craft, and the pleasure of settling in and bathing in the simplicity of the story. This is a book for those who love books and relish in reading them.
Final thoughts? If you are a fan of Ann Patchett, Larry Watson, or Ivan Doig, you will not want to miss this one! Dive on in and meander through some small town secrets, found family, redemption, and love. I absolutely adored this book...Welcome to Anthem, Wisconsin. I hope you enjoy your stay.
October 17, 2023
Claire’s viewpoints on motherhood drove me nuts. “A good mother should” “a good wife would” “what would another mother do”. Mothers are PEOPLE. Motherhood is not a homogenous universal experience. Treating it as such is a huge part of the reason that so many moms struggle. That society often treats them so poorly. Comparison is a quick way to suck the joy out of motherhood and life in general. Can’t we all be mothers the way we do it best? Also why was it her job to keep the family together when her husband was so obviously uninterested and having an affair. Men can be expected to be involved and responsible partners! And I understand she is an alcoholic but I did not enjoy reading about her needing and craving it all the time.
I did enjoy Jack and Lib, and especially Jack’s relationship with Charlie. I enjoyed the descriptions of the settings, especially Lib’s house. I really felt like I could be there, taking care of my own home, reading amongst all the lamps, planting flowers. It sounds so nice honestly. And I can picture Jack’s too, and all his tools in the garage. Both sound like welcoming places I’d like to be.
I could go on about everyone’s decisions about what to share or not but I don’t feel like it. Basically boils down to why is everyone so afraid to be authentic?
PS book club notes: real life mom who called herself a shitty mom because she didn’t get balloons for her son’s birthday one year because the store closed earlier than she thought. How does that make one a shitty mom?? I’ve done shitty things that could’ve been better as a mom but that doesn’t make me a shitty mom. WE ARE HUMAN.
I did enjoy Jack and Lib, and especially Jack’s relationship with Charlie. I enjoyed the descriptions of the settings, especially Lib’s house. I really felt like I could be there, taking care of my own home, reading amongst all the lamps, planting flowers. It sounds so nice honestly. And I can picture Jack’s too, and all his tools in the garage. Both sound like welcoming places I’d like to be.
I could go on about everyone’s decisions about what to share or not but I don’t feel like it. Basically boils down to why is everyone so afraid to be authentic?
PS book club notes: real life mom who called herself a shitty mom because she didn’t get balloons for her son’s birthday one year because the store closed earlier than she thought. How does that make one a shitty mom?? I’ve done shitty things that could’ve been better as a mom but that doesn’t make me a shitty mom. WE ARE HUMAN.
December 15, 2022
A masterful, lyrical novel set in rural Wisconsin, Still True tells a simple story of complex characters whose lives interweave in poignant, engaging ways. Jack and Lib have been married thirty years and are still passionately in love, though each maintains a separate home miles apart. Claire, Dan, and their boy Charlie are new residents of the small town and Claire is suffocating in a marriage that has sapped her spark for life, as she turns increasingly to alcohol to shut down the voices inside her head telling her there is more to life than this. And then the inevitable stranger comes to town in the form of Matt, Lib’s son, whom she abandoned forty years before and has hidden from Jack all this time.
I gave myself the luxury of reading only a few chapters of this wonderful book a night, hoping this story would never end but just go on spooling out, filling my thoughts, touching my emotions, feeding me bit by bit the saga of these endearing, enduring people who came to mean so much to me. Very little "happens" in the sense of dramatic action scenes, yet in the way of great literature, everything does—jealousy, hurt, joy, connection, comfort, rage, and ultimately forgiveness.
If you’re a reader who’s tired of characters who come off as caricatures, plots too convoluted to ring true, and stories that veer away from exploring genuine human emotions in favor of off-the-cuff superficial fluff, this is the book for you. And if you’re a fan of Larry Watson, William Kent Krueger, and loved Chris Whitaker’s We Begin at the End, this belongs on your TBR list.
I gave myself the luxury of reading only a few chapters of this wonderful book a night, hoping this story would never end but just go on spooling out, filling my thoughts, touching my emotions, feeding me bit by bit the saga of these endearing, enduring people who came to mean so much to me. Very little "happens" in the sense of dramatic action scenes, yet in the way of great literature, everything does—jealousy, hurt, joy, connection, comfort, rage, and ultimately forgiveness.
If you’re a reader who’s tired of characters who come off as caricatures, plots too convoluted to ring true, and stories that veer away from exploring genuine human emotions in favor of off-the-cuff superficial fluff, this is the book for you. And if you’re a fan of Larry Watson, William Kent Krueger, and loved Chris Whitaker’s We Begin at the End, this belongs on your TBR list.
September 29, 2022
Full disclosure: Maggie is my friend.
HOWEVER: I do not rate my friends' novels if I wouldn't give them five stars in an anonymous reading.
ALSO BEAR IN MIND: I mostly read and write fantasy/"soft" science fiction. Impossible things (thanks, Connie Willis) are my jam. And I FREAKIN' LOVED THIS BOOK. My only complaint (which is the only good kind of complaint coming from a reader) is that I could have lived with these characters for at least twice as many pages (which goes to show you that not every superlative blurb you find on a book cover is 87%-baloney, heh heh).
Seriously though, STILL TRUE is a master class in character development. You aspiring writers want to figure out how to create fully-fleshed characters your readers can root for despite every terrible decision they make, calibrate narrative tension, build emotional resonance without resorting to melodrama, and draw upon your own lived experience to craft a story that is Not About You At All—read STILL TRUE, okay? The paperback is a heckuva lot cheaper than an M.F.A.
AND it's a debut novel!!!
👏🙌💙
HOWEVER: I do not rate my friends' novels if I wouldn't give them five stars in an anonymous reading.
ALSO BEAR IN MIND: I mostly read and write fantasy/"soft" science fiction. Impossible things (thanks, Connie Willis) are my jam. And I FREAKIN' LOVED THIS BOOK. My only complaint (which is the only good kind of complaint coming from a reader) is that I could have lived with these characters for at least twice as many pages (which goes to show you that not every superlative blurb you find on a book cover is 87%-baloney, heh heh).
Seriously though, STILL TRUE is a master class in character development. You aspiring writers want to figure out how to create fully-fleshed characters your readers can root for despite every terrible decision they make, calibrate narrative tension, build emotional resonance without resorting to melodrama, and draw upon your own lived experience to craft a story that is Not About You At All—read STILL TRUE, okay? The paperback is a heckuva lot cheaper than an M.F.A.
AND it's a debut novel!!!
👏🙌💙
August 24, 2023
When telling the truth, what do we owe to the ones we love?
40 years ago, Lib left a baby and another life far behind her when she came back to the farm that her mom left when she passed. A farm that Lib paid for in more ways than one, now that she’s older and wiser, she knows the price she paid was more than any human should have to. And in learning this, buried deep in her heart and never told Jack.
In those 40 years since, she has started a new life with Jack. They are married but have arranged living in two different houses. It works for them. Suddenly Matt, the baby from 40 years ago ends up at her doorstep and thrusts her happy little life into a tailspin. This is also the time when little Charlie comes into Jack’s life, filling a hole he never knew he had.
Will the secrets these people hold tear them apart or bring them together? What do we owe to the ones we love and are we able to hold true to the feelings we have for each other? Set in a small town in Wisconsin, this was a good change of pace from the books I have been reading.
40 years ago, Lib left a baby and another life far behind her when she came back to the farm that her mom left when she passed. A farm that Lib paid for in more ways than one, now that she’s older and wiser, she knows the price she paid was more than any human should have to. And in learning this, buried deep in her heart and never told Jack.
In those 40 years since, she has started a new life with Jack. They are married but have arranged living in two different houses. It works for them. Suddenly Matt, the baby from 40 years ago ends up at her doorstep and thrusts her happy little life into a tailspin. This is also the time when little Charlie comes into Jack’s life, filling a hole he never knew he had.
Will the secrets these people hold tear them apart or bring them together? What do we owe to the ones we love and are we able to hold true to the feelings we have for each other? Set in a small town in Wisconsin, this was a good change of pace from the books I have been reading.
September 12, 2022
Nuanced, layered, intimate, and full of tenderness. I’ve anxiously awaited this release and then rushed to pick it up and then slowed down with each paragraph and page.
Maggie Ginsberg gave us a delicate story - yet one that trellised in my mind as the truth unfolded.
Still True will stay close to your heart and you’ll also want to share it with others - gently pressing the soft cover and pages into their hands. “Read this, read this,” you’ll rightfully urge.
Maggie Ginsberg gave us a delicate story - yet one that trellised in my mind as the truth unfolded.
Still True will stay close to your heart and you’ll also want to share it with others - gently pressing the soft cover and pages into their hands. “Read this, read this,” you’ll rightfully urge.
October 8, 2022
This is a fantastic story populated by people you feel you know and secrets you wish you didn’t. The author develops her characters with true complexity. The story kept me on pins and needles, wondering where the lies would end and the truth would begin.
March 8, 2025
"Maybe that was what made a family -- what the right person brought out in you. Who you became with each other that you weren't, or couldn't be, alone. "
August 16, 2025
The second half slowed down, but this is a lovely book. I will recommend it. Excellent story. Well written. Well-developed characters.
January 3, 2024
How can I stay lost in this story, this setting and these characters forever?
In tiny rural town of Anthem, WI Jack and Lib are enjoying 30 years of unique marital bliss. When an unexpected visitor blows into town it disrupts all they knew and believed.
Dan (new school district administrator), Claire and their son relocate to Anthem from the State Capitol Madison and struggle to adjust.
After an incredibly scary event everyone is forced to decide how they will move on.
I loved everything about this book. It reminded me of my small town roots with characters I felt I’ve known my whole life! This contemporary fiction novel will make you remember why you love books!
In tiny rural town of Anthem, WI Jack and Lib are enjoying 30 years of unique marital bliss. When an unexpected visitor blows into town it disrupts all they knew and believed.
Dan (new school district administrator), Claire and their son relocate to Anthem from the State Capitol Madison and struggle to adjust.
After an incredibly scary event everyone is forced to decide how they will move on.
I loved everything about this book. It reminded me of my small town roots with characters I felt I’ve known my whole life! This contemporary fiction novel will make you remember why you love books!
September 19, 2022
There are few books I am willing to spend an entire day with, especially when there are so many other things I should be doing but none of those things mattered once I got to about the halfway mark of Still True. The author sets up the story in Anthem, Wisconsin, a small town with quirky characters. I love how she gives us hints of things to come but doesn't overtly note their importance. She weaves the story in beautiful and descriptive scenes. I'm a sucker for visual language and she's a master at putting us within viewing distance of a scene, making us care for the characters, appreciate their flaws, feel their pain and rejoice in their happiness. Her sentences are just such a delight to read.
This is one of those books that pulls you in and you want to keep reading because you want to know how things will turn out -- for everyone. Highly recommend. I can't wait for some of my friends to finish reading it so we can discuss it. This would make for a great book club selection and I'm tempted to start a book club just so I can have several others to talk to about this book.
This is one of those books that pulls you in and you want to keep reading because you want to know how things will turn out -- for everyone. Highly recommend. I can't wait for some of my friends to finish reading it so we can discuss it. This would make for a great book club selection and I'm tempted to start a book club just so I can have several others to talk to about this book.
October 25, 2022
I absolutely loved every minutes of it. I haven't finished a book since my son was born - 10 months ago - but Still True grabbed me from the beginning and I was excited to dive back in every chance I had. I immediately fell for the characters. From the very first page I wanted to know more about their stories, their lives, their relationships...
And oh, the relationships. From mothers and sons to husbands and wives, there were such rich and complex connections to explore. The elements of chosen family were some of the best, and the love and devotion between Jack and Charlie was my favorite.
I can't wait to read more from this author!
And oh, the relationships. From mothers and sons to husbands and wives, there were such rich and complex connections to explore. The elements of chosen family were some of the best, and the love and devotion between Jack and Charlie was my favorite.
I can't wait to read more from this author!
June 6, 2025
I just couldn't do it.. that book is not very long so I thought I could stick it out and, really, I probably could have but I just kept wanting it to be over so I could read something else (ha). I think the book probably has a good, wholesome ending or something but it was just a bit odd for me. I can't honestly imagine that two people who have been married for 30+ years live that separated- like they are two 20 year olds who have to decide who will sleep over at the other's house tonight.
Once I got to the part about Claire getting a part time job at the grocery store and her first customer being the guy she saw around town, I lost all interest.
It was all just too 'eye roll' for me.
Once I got to the part about Claire getting a part time job at the grocery store and her first customer being the guy she saw around town, I lost all interest.
It was all just too 'eye roll' for me.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 10, 2022
I will carry this book and its characters with me. They are stuck to my ribs and I mostly believe they are alive and living in Wisconsin and maybe one day I'll go visit them. The storyline is captivating. The character development, beautiful! The themes are important and thought-through and written out in a way that is utterly brilliant. I did not want this to end. I wanted to stay with these people and go to Wednesday night dinners. I wanted to see how their futures play out. Dammit, Ginsberg, you've done it. Thank you!
October 11, 2022
I loved this book so much that I finished it in one sitting. I just could not put it down. Hopefully Maggie Ginsberg writes many more books. I'll buy them all :)
October 24, 2022
Excellent!
This story lends itself to the imagination so easily. I loved picturing the Wisconsin town, and our beautiful seasonal settings, especially the ending.
This story lends itself to the imagination so easily. I loved picturing the Wisconsin town, and our beautiful seasonal settings, especially the ending.
October 28, 2022
Loved this book so much! I was sad when the story ended.
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