Life, only better

Mathilde is twenty-four. She has abandoned her studies in art history in lieu of a menial job and lives in a house she shares with twin sisters. One day she forgets her bag in a café and a week later an unknown man returns it to her. Following this encounter, Mathilde decides to throw caution to the wind and change her life entirely. Yann is twenty-six, a university graduate, unemployed. There may be better days ahead. Maybe. While waiting for them to come, he works as a sales assistant in a home appliances store. He wouldn't say he is unhappy. But sometimes, late at night, when he is crossing a bridge over the River Seine, he imagines jumping. One day he does a favor for one of his neighbors and is asked to stay for dinner as thanks. The following morning Yann throws caution to the wind and decides to change his life entirely. These two novellas by best-selling author Anna Gavalda are among her most moving and inspiring. Love in this book is a fragile emotion, easily ruined and eternally subject to the consequences of one's choices. Gavalda's great gift is the directness with which she addresses her readers in a voice that is at once inventive, forceful, and intimate. Life, Only Better is a touching, cleverly crafted book about choices and their consequences.

Born in Paris in 1970, Anna Gavalda's first published work was the critically acclaimed collection of short stories I Wish Someone Were Waiting for Me Somewhere, which sold over half a million copies in her native France and was published in the US by Riverhead in 2003. She is also the author of Someone I Loved and the international bestseller Hunting and Gathering (Riverhead, 2007), which was made into a film starring Audrey Tautou and Daniel Auteuil. Gavalda lives in Paris.

224 pages

Original title: La vie en mieux