Praise for Dear Zoe - One of ALA Booklist's Ten Best First Novels of 2005
One of the Ten Best First Novels of the Year, Booklist
A Border's Original Voices Selection
A Book Sense Pick
One of the School Library Journal's "Best Books of 2005" in the category of "Best Adult Books for High School Students."
Highbridge Audio Version Winner of an AudioFile Earphone Award
“DEAR ZOE is an almost flawless novel of self-discovery and redemption. It is the sort of book that a generation can call 'theirs,' a book that captures the trials of adolescence and the aching numbness of America in the aftermath of 9/11.”
— THE PRESS OF ATLANTIC CITY
“Like [The Lovely Bones], it is a piercing look at how a family recovers from a devastating loss. Beard captures the raw emotion of a 15-year-old girl with impressive dexterity, following Tess through the many stages of grief. Everything about this moving, powerful debut rings true.”
— BOOKLIST, starred review
“Whatever comparisons are drawn, there is no doubt that this book is a gem all its own.”
— BOOKREPORTER.COM
“Beard has a "perceptive writer's soul" [and he] "peels away the layers of his protagonist's anguish simply and sensitively.”
— THE WASHINGTON POST
“Affecting”
— ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
“In his soulful debut novel . . . Philip Beard does a pitch-perfect impersonation but never sugar-coats the depths of a young girl's despair.”
— THE PITTSBURGH POST GAZETTE
“Lovely . . . moving.”
— PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“The whole novel . . . rings with truth. By the end of it, we're meditating on the ideas of loss and redemption, the ways in which personal tragedies get absorbed into larger ones, but never obliterated, never forgotten.”
— THE BUFFALO NEWS