Young Jane Young

Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin, 294 pages

When Aviva Grossman was a 20-year-old congressional intern, she became the Monica Lewinsky of south Florida, thanks to a sex scandal with her charismatic (and married) congressman. Fifteen years and a name change later, Jane Young is a successful business woman in Maine, raising her precocious daughter alone, and avoiding anything that might hint at her scandalous past. It's a story we're all familiar with — the politician and the impressionable young woman —but Zevin tells it solely from the points of view of the women involved: the intern, her mother, the congressman's wife, the intern's daughter. It's a refreshing, complex take on the tale, and a much-needed take-down of slut-shaming.