About Good Apple: Tales of a Southern Evangelical in New York
Hardcover: 256 Pages
Publisher: Thomas Nelson (January 19, 2021)
“The thing about being an evangelical Christian and a Southerner living in New York City, raising her children in an apartment where one of them sleeps in a closet, is that there are a lot of people in your life to disappoint.”
So says Elizabeth Passarella in her wry and witty debut, Good Apple. Among the people she has to disappoint are her parents in Memphis, who are bewildered by how their daughter went from interning for Ralph Reed (it’s a long story) to voting for Hillary Clinton; her parents’ friends, who don’t understand how a family of five lives in a two-bedroom apartment; and, perhaps most of all, her colleagues and neighbors on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, who are always surprised to learn that their sophisticated, irreverent friend is an evangelical Christian.
Elizabeth keeps readers, no matter their faith or their politics, laughing and nodding along in solidarity, whether she is
- proposing the benefits of fighting with her husband on New York City street corners;
- explaining what it was like to grow up as a Christian with a Jewish dad;
- or recounting the surreal and terrifying experience of finding a rat trapped in her bedroom in her apartment on the eighth floor.
Her love of the city is infectious. Her transparency about highly embarrassing screw-ups is refreshing. And her reminders of forgiveness and grace give us hope. Elizabeth is the smart, funny, red-state, blue-state, Southern, Christian New Yorker you didn’t think even existed–but now want as your best friend.
Purchase Links
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About Elizabeth Passarella
Elizabeth Passarella is a contributing editor for Southern Living, where she writes the “Social Graces” column. A former editor at Real Simple and Vogue, she has written about food, travel, home design, and parenting in outlets including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Parents, Martha Stewart Weddings, and Coastal Living. Elizabeth was one of the first food writers hired at Apartment Therapy’s The Kitchn, where she wrote daily posts and developed recipes. Her essay “Passing and Repasting,” about her grandmother’s funeral, was included in Cornbread Nation 1: The Best of Southern Food Writing. She lives in New York City.
Connect with Elizabeth
Website | Facebook | Instagram
Instagram tour:
Monday, January 18th: @wherethereadergrows
Monday, January 18th: @stumblingintobooks
Tuesday, January 19th: @lifeinlit
Wednesday, January 20th: @nurse_bookie
Thursday, January 21st: @fashionablyfifty
Thursday, January 21st: @thebookend.diner
Friday, January 22nd: @katieneedsabiggerbookshelf
Sunday, January 24th: @happiestwhenreading
Sunday, January 24th: @the_unwined
Monday, January 25th: @hotcocoareads
Tuesday, January 26th: @books_and_broadway
Wednesday, January 27th: @sweetbookobsession
Thursday, January 28th: @mrsboomreads
Friday, January 29th: @books_with_bethany
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Saturday, January 30th: @dropandgivemenerdy
Friday, February 5th: @prose_and_palate
Thursday, February 11th: @ohthebooksshewillread