July 2024 Top Novel: "The Paper Palace" by Miranda Cowley Heller

Some books have a way of pulling you into their world so completely that, for a while, you forget your own. The Paper Palace did exactly that. I picked it up on a slow, humid afternoon and didn’t set it down until the last page, left with more questions than answers about the tangled mess of love, loyalty, and the past.

The story unfolds over a single summer day at a weathered family retreat in Cape Cod, a place Elle has returned to every year of her life. This year is different. Hours before, she crossed a line she can’t undo, sleeping with Jonas, the childhood best friend she’s loved quietly and fiercely for decades. Her husband was just steps away, unaware. Now, as Elle moves through her day, swimming in the pond, gathering with family, sharing meals; she’s also sifting through a lifetime of memories and buried secrets, weighing a decision that could change everything.

What hooked me wasn’t just the love triangle at the center, but the way Miranda Cowley Heller peels back layers of family history, trauma, and inherited pain. There’s no clean villain or hero here. Elle’s marriage is tender but imperfect. Jonas represents a version of herself that might have been. Both choices carry weight. Both cost something.

The writing is intimate and rich with detail. Every scene feels lived in: the creaking floorboards of the summer house, the cool slip of pond water, the scent of pine. It’s not hard to picture yourself there, watching Elle’s world quietly unravel as she chases a future that might never have been hers to begin with.

I found myself thinking about the things we inherit from our families. Not just the good (the recipes, the traditions, the safe places) but the darker stuff too. The patterns we repeat even when we promise ourselves we won’t. The Paper Palace is so much about that silent pull, the way the past holds us tighter than we realize.

By the time I reached the end, I still wasn’t sure what choice Elle should have made. I’m not sure she was either. That’s what makes this story so memorable; it forces you to sit with the uncomfortable truth that sometimes there is no right answer, only the one you choose and live with.

If you’re looking for something messy, emotional, and beautifully written, The Paper Palace should be next on your list. It stayed with me longer than I expected and made me think about the spaces we return to, the people we can’t let go of, and the choices we carry quietly for the rest of our lives.