Katrina Leno

Katrina Leno grew up in Connecticut and spent her childhood summers by the shore in Massachusetts, where The Half Life of Molly Pierce, her first novel, takes place. Leno was first published at the age of sixteen in the Connecticut Review and now holds an MFA in creative writing.

Recently I asked the author about what she was reading. Her reply:

We Are the Goldens by Dana Reinhardt. I read about 20% of this book before I went to sleep on a Monday night, and I finished the rest of it while flying cross-country the following day. I love reading a book blind—I don’t like to read many descriptions or reviews beforehand, because inevitably your reading of the book will then by tainted by other peoples’ reading of the book. So I’d only heard whispers of this (mostly people saying how much they enjoyed it), and I think it’s the sort of book where going in blind makes it all the more satisfying.

I loved this book from first chapter to last line. I loved the narrator. I loved the way Reinhardt handled the subject matter. I loved all the secondary characters. I especially loved the unique narration (although lots of people on the internet are saying it’s written in the second person, but it isn’t. It’s first person with a second person audience, which I think is a very important distinction. This is not a “Choose-Your-Own-Adventure” novel). This is one of those books I finished and thought to myself “Damn. I wish I had written this.”

Visit Katrina Leno's website.

--Marshal Zeringue