Alexander Salow

Reading September is a haunting literary novel about two girls separated by centuries yet connected by a secret diary-and by pain. When Elizabeth, a fourteen-year-old girl lost in her own darkness, discovers the diary of a Victorian girl named September, she begins to see herself in its pages. The past and present blur; the wounds of two lives start to echo each other. In September's drawings, Elizabeth finds beauty, cruelty, and the unbearable tenderness of a forbidden love.
What begins as curiosity becomes a revelation. Guided by the gaze of an elderly librarian and the ghost of a girl who was never allowed to grow up, Elizabeth will confront her own shadows-and decide whether to keep breathing or become just another page in September's book. A novel about memory, trauma, and the fragile miracle of surviving oneself. Lyrical, raw, and profoundly human, Reading September is an unforgettable story for readers who loved The Virgin Suicides, The Bell Jar, and A Little Life.