* INAUGURAL LILLY'S LIBRARY BOOK CLUB PICK FROM LILLY SINGH * “A beautiful book about a mother and son…I really loved this book.” ― Rumaan Alam on The TODAY Show By turns irreverent and tender, filled with the beats of ’90s R&B, Neel Patel's Tell Me How to Be is about our earliest betrayals and the cost of reconciliation. But most of all, it is the love story of a mother and son each trying to figure out how to be in the world. Renu Amin always seemed perfect. But as the one-year anniversary of her husband’s death approaches, she is binge-watching soap operas and simmering with old resentments. She can’t stop wondering if, thirty-five years ago, she chose the wrong life. In Los Angeles, her son, Akash, has everything he ever wanted, but he is haunted by the painful memories he fled a decade ago. When his mother tells him she is selling the family home, Akash returns to Illinois, hoping to finally say goodbye and move on. Together, Renu and Akash pack up the house, retreating further into the secrets that stand between them. Renu sends an innocent Facebook message to the man she almost married, sparking an emotional affair that calls into question everything she thought she knew about herself. Akash slips back into bad habits as he confronts his darkest secrets―including what really happened between him and the first boy who broke his heart. When their pasts catch up to them, Renu and Akash must decide between the lives they left behind and the ones they’ve since created, between making each other happy and setting themselves free. “This debut novel about an Indian-American family has all the right ingredients: family secrets, love, sexuality, loss, identity questions and remorse.” ― Good Morning America Praise for Tell Me How To Be : A Lilly's Library Book Club Pick from Lilly Singh A Most Anticipated Book (The TODAY Show, Good Morning America, Harper’s Bazaar, Reader’s Digest, Business Insider, The Millions, Lambda Literary, Goodreads, PopSugar, Bustle, Chicago Review of Books , LGBTQ Reads, Alta, Apartment Therapy) “A beautiful book about a mother and son…I really loved this book.” ―Rumaan Alam on The TODAY Show “Patel infuses Tell Me How to Be with a lively self-awareness, humor and warmth… Mother and son share a love of guilty pleasures in a novel that asks: When you find the melody that speaks to you, why let it go?” ― New York Times Book Review "If you want your heart broken open, Neel Patel’s Tell Me How to Be , about an immigrant mother still longing for the man she left behind, and her mostly closeted son still struggling with his own desires, is perfection." ―Jennifer Weiner, USA Today “This is a dream of a novel ― the story is, among so many things, about family and its endless forms, about loves found and lost and reimagined. It’s deeply funny and full of feeling, by turns wickedly funny and emotional. I was smitten, and I’m so glad it’s a part of our canon.” ―Bryan Washington, The Cut “If you like stories about families coming to terms with long-held secrets, Patel’s self-assured debut should be on your radar.” ― Harper’s Bazaar “This debut novel about an Indian-American family has all the right ingredients: family secrets, love, sexuality, loss, identity questions and remorse.” ―Good Morning America “Poignant…Fresh…Soulful and convincing.” ― The Guardian "A moving saga of identity and reconciliation." ―People Magazine “In this soulful, moody novel, Patel shows how Akash and Renu suffer from the impossibility of emotional honesty within their Indian immigrant community in the Midwest, its norms enforced by gossip and social snubs.” ― The Minneapolis Star Tribune “Both irreverent and tender, this story of a recently widowed mother and grown son going through the motions of selling the family home, each trying to figure out how to best make each other happy while learning to accept their mistakes and each other, is a love story at its heart.” ― Reader’s Digest “Generous and soulful…As enveloping and warm as a long-overdue hug from a loved one, and written in accessible, dynamic prose, it’d make a perfect last-minute holiday gift for any son to give a mother, and read for themselves, too.” ― Chicago Review of Books “ Tell Me How to Be is a quietly wise novel, a love song to families, however imperfect they may be, as well as a tender and fierce celebration of queerness. It’s a lot of books in one, and each one is a knockout.” ― Alta Journal of California ―“A funny and moving story about forgiveness and learning to move forward.” ― BookRiot “Patel's well-drawn characters and richly metaphorical style carry the reader along.” ― New York Journal of Books “Neel Patel’s gorgeous debut novel flows so seamlessly that you hardly notice you’re reading it; it feels more like you’re simply existing with his characters.” ― BookPage “Readers who enjoyed Nadia Hashimi’s Sparks Like Stars and Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections