The ELLE's Lettres Readers' Prize 2013

15 ELLE readers vote for their favorite of three new releases that we love—this month, quirky coming-of-age novels.

Philip Friedman/Studio D

The Stud Book by Monica Drake (Hogarth)

Sarah, working at the Oregon Zoo in deepest Portlandia, is fascinated by the parallels between her charges' mating habits and her bohemian crowd’s various behaviors involving procreation, parenting, and family life. Readers found this story both edgy and a little baggy.

Mating rituals of the Pacific Northwest are turned on their heads in Drake’s work. From an obsession with starting a family that may well prove to be its own undoing to selflessness taken to toxic extremes, this book is deeply sad and often hilariously funny, sometimes in the space of one sentence. If friends are our chosen family, they sometimes come with just as much unforgivably annoying baggage as the family we ditched for them, yet therein lies a key to love: We endure them, knowing we’re just as flawed ourselves, and that love creates a home.—Heather Seggel, Ukiah, CA

Drake spins a stark tale of four friends who lead startlingly different lives. Nyle, a single mother with a troubled teenage daughter; Dulcet, a free spirit with offbeat and dangerous sexual proclivities; Georgie, a new mother with an absentee husband; Sarah, an animal behaviorist who longs to be a mother—these women are a loyal support system to one another, even as they deal with jealousy, pain, and drama.—Beth Brezinski, Scottsdale, AZ

Drake’s novel is a smart, well-drawn portrayal of modern parenting and family life in a liberal bastion of the Pacific Northwest. The characters struggle to overcome timeless adversities—infertility, spousal disconnect, eking out a living, protecting one’s offspring—in a distinctly twenty-first-century comedy-of-manners style. The characters aren’t all likable, and none is a paragon of virtue, but they’re realistically depicted, and their struggles to escape their predicaments are often humorous and touching.—Doreen M Sheridan, Washington, DC

A heart-wrenching, wince-inducing, laugh-out-loud novel that’s equal parts sweet and sour, with a little bitter thrown in. Drake’s story is bewitching, tragic, moving, and often times disturbing, with a frank storyline and gritty, complex characters. Drake’s writing is filled with vibrant analogies, clever lines, and transitions between multiple characters’ perspectives that are executed with finesse and careful complexity. However, the conclusion leaves one too many loose ends for us to grapple with.—Rachel Stottlemyer, Waynesboro, PA

A stud book is a breed registry of animals; in Drake’s version, a group of human friends are preoccupied with breeding, babies, and parenthood. The writing is elegant and smart, and the characters are distinctive, though I had a hard time genuinely investing in their trials and triumphs. Stand-out moments and apt comparisons between animal mating behaviors and human courtship rituals make for an enjoyable read.—Monica Shah, Edison, NJ

Drake’s characters were too cliché for me. The book read as though she were creating types based on elements of her own or her friends’ personalities. This was distracting, as I never fully bought in to any of them, so I ended up not caring about what happened to them even though they are in situations that ring very true to most any woman who has had a child and a relationship.—Kathleen Hefley, Longmont, CO

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