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When Lia is 43 years old, her cancer returns, and the diagnosis quickly shifts the dynamics of her family of three. As Lia’s academic husband Harry and their 12-year-old daughter Iris attempt to support her, she’s catapulted back into memories of her past. Author Maddie Mortimer flips through these moments in her heartrending novel Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies, which was longlisted for a Booker Prize. As Mortimer reveals the romance from her protagonist’s youth, she crafts a kaleidoscopic narrative that is both a coming-of-age and end-of-life story. —Laura Zornosa
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