Elyssa Friedland
Elyssa Friedland has published 7 books across 2 series. The recommended reading order starts with Love and Miss Communication (2015).
Elyssa Friedland is an American novelist who began her career writing for publications including Modern Bride, New York magazine, Columbia Journalism Review, and CBS MarketWatch.com before shifting to law and then to fiction. She attended Yale University, where she served as managing editor of the Yale Daily News, then earned her law degree from Columbia Law School and worked as an associate at a major firm.
Friedland is best known for Last Summer at the Golden Hotel, a Good Morning America Buzz Pick, and The Floating Feldmans, a People Magazine "People Pick". Her novels draw readers into family stories rich with humor and the complications that come when generations collide. She grew up in New Jersey and now lives in New York City with her husband and three children, balancing her writing life with the everyday chaos of raising a young family.
Shelf & Shadows
Order of Children's Books
- TagschildrenDescriptionWhat do we keep, and what do we let go? Elyssa Friedland's *The Museum of Lost Teeth* takes this question and turns it into something both whimsical and achingly real—a meditation on childhood, memory, and the small relics that anchor us to who we once were. The title itself suggests a cabinet of curiosities, a place where the discarded and forgotten are given reverence, and that's precisely the emotional terrain Friedland navigates. This is a story about the things we save—not because they're valuable, but because they're ours. At its heart, the book explores the peculiar museum of one family's history, where baby teeth become artifacts and nostalgia becomes a kind of architecture. Friedland writes with precision and warmth, capturing the bittersweet comedy of parenthood and the ways we try to hold onto our children even as they grow beyond us. The narrative moves between humor and heartbreak, never settling too long in either register. It's a book about the absurdity of preservation—the impulse to catalog and curate our lives—and the deeper truth that some things can't be kept, only remembered. Short, vivid, and surprisingly moving, *The Museum of Lost Teeth* asks what it means to be a keeper of small things in a world that insists we move forward.Publication dateFebruary 7, 2023Amazon rating4.5/5Print length40LanguageEnglishPublisherHarry N. Abrams
Order of Standalone Novels
- Tagsromanceparanormal-romancehistorical-fictionfantasyhorrorDescriptionElyssa Friedland's *Love and Miss Communication* asks a question that feels both radical and impossible in our hyperconnected age: what happens when you unplug completely? This is a novel about digital detox as existential reckoning, a romantic comedy that doubles as a sharp critique of how we've outsourced our emotional lives to screens. Evie Rosen is a successful lawyer whose life runs on email, texts, and the constant hum of notifications—until a mortifying digital mishap forces her to confront how much she's been hiding behind her devices. She makes a drastic choice: go offline entirely. No email, no social media, no dating apps. Just life, unmediated and terrifyingly real. What follows is both hilarious and unexpectedly poignant. Without the buffer of technology, Evie has to navigate relationships the old-fashioned way—face-to-face, vulnerable, messy. She reconnects with people she'd forgotten, confronts feelings she'd been avoiding, and discovers that real intimacy requires more than a well-crafted text. Friedland writes with wit and warmth, capturing the absurdity of modern romance while never losing sight of the deeper loneliness that drives us to our phones in the first place. This is a love story, yes, but it's also about reclaiming your life from the tyranny of constant connection. Smart, funny, and surprisingly moving.Publication dateApril 20, 2015Amazon rating3.7/5Print length400LanguageEnglishPublisherMorrowPb
- Tagsliterary-fictionDescriptionCass Coyne asks for a break. Six months. No contact except the monthly handoff of their dog. Her husband Jonathan never saw it coming. Five years into marriage, the shine has worn off. Cass has lost the confidence she carried down the aisle. Jonathan still loves her, even if her quirks—the impossible standards, the dishes left unwashed—have started to needle him. He thinks they're fine. She knows they're not. So she proposes an intermission, a trial separation to figure out if the life they've built is the one they still want. The rules are simple. Stay apart. Think hard. Decide. But silence has a way of amplifying what's been buried. As the months stretch on, both begin to realize that it wasn't just the small irritations that drove them apart. It was the things they never said. The secrets they've been sidestepping. The conversations they've been too afraid to have. Now, with their marriage on pause, Cass and Jonathan are forced to confront the uncomfortable truths they've been avoiding. The intermission was supposed to bring clarity. Instead, it's unearthing everything they've tried to ignore. Whether they come back together or walk away for good depends on whether they're finally ready to be honest—with each other, and with themselves.Publication dateJuly 3, 2018Amazon rating3.8/5Print length368LanguageEnglishPublisherBerkley
- TagschildrenDescriptionThe Feldmans are boarding a cruise ship. All of them. Three generations crammed onto one floating resort, and nobody's thrilled about it. Annette Feldman has orchestrated this family reunion cruise with the kind of determination only a matriarch can muster. Her adult children have their own messy lives to deal with—careers imploding, marriages fraying, secrets multiplying. But Mom insists, so here they are, trapped at sea with nowhere to run. What starts as forced togetherness becomes something else entirely. The ship's confined quarters mean old resentments surface fast. Grudges that have simmered for years boil over between the shuffleboard and the buffet line. Each family member is hiding something, and a week at sea has a way of bringing everything to light. Elyssa Friedland delivers a sharp, funny exploration of family dysfunction with real heart underneath the chaos. The Feldmans are messy and complicated and utterly recognizable—the kind of family that drives you crazy because you see your own relatives in every argument. This is a story about what happens when you can't escape the people who know you best, and how sometimes being stuck together is exactly what a broken family needs.Publication dateJuly 23, 2019Amazon rating4/5Print length368LanguageEnglishPublisherPenguin Publishing Group
- TagsfantasyDescriptionWhat do you do when the place that holds your family's history is crumbling, and everyone wants something different from its ruins? The Golden Hotel has been a Catskills institution for decades, a summer refuge where the Weingold and Goldman families built their fortunes and their complicated legacies. Now it's the last weekend before the hotel closes for good, and three generations are gathering to decide its fate. Some want to sell. Some want to save it. And some just want to escape the weight of expectations that have pressed down on them every summer of their lives. Elyssa Friedland weaves together multiple perspectives with the skill of someone who understands that family businesses are never just about business—they're about loyalty, resentment, dreams deferred, and the stories we tell ourselves about who we are. The novel moves between past and present, revealing how one fateful summer decades ago set everything in motion, and how the choices made then still reverberate through marriages, careers, and the fraught bonds between parents and children. This is a book about inheritance in every sense: what we're given, what we're stuck with, what we choose to carry forward. Friedland captures the bittersweet ache of watching an era end, and the surprising freedom that can come when you finally let go of what you thought you were supposed to want.Publication dateMay 18, 2021Amazon rating4.2/5Print length384LanguageEnglishPublisherBerkley
- Tags---DescriptionThe Most Likely Club by Elyssa Friedland is a sharp excavation of the distance between who we thought we'd become and who we actually are. It understands that high school superlatives are both prophecy and curse, and that reunions force us to reckon with both. Twenty-five years after graduation, five former classmates reunite—not for nostalgia, but because their lives have veered wildly off script. The girl voted "Most Likely to Succeed" is drowning in secrets. The golden boy isn't so golden anymore. Each of them carries the weight of expectations they never asked for, and the reunion becomes less about reminiscing and more about reckoning. Friedland captures the particular claustrophobia of returning to your hometown when you're no longer sure who you're supposed to be. What makes this novel compelling is its refusal to offer easy answers or tidy redemptions. These characters are messy, flawed, and deeply recognizable—people who made compromises, took wrong turns, and are now trying to figure out if it's too late to course-correct. Friedland writes with wit and precision about friendship, ambition, and the stories we tell ourselves to survive. This is a book about second chances, but also about accepting that some doors close permanently. It's both uncomfortable and oddly comforting, a reminder that everyone is winging it, even the people who seemed to have it all figured out.Publication dateSeptember 6, 2022Amazon rating3.9/5Print length368LanguageEnglishPublisherBerkley
- TagschildrenDescriptionJackpot Summer asks what happens when a windfall doesn't solve everything—it only reveals what was already broken. Elyssa Friedland constructs a family drama around the most American of fantasies: the lottery win that changes everything overnight. When the Jacobson family hits the jackpot, the money arrives not as salvation but as a catalyst, forcing long-simmering tensions and buried resentments into the open. What they thought would unite them instead threatens to pull them apart, as each member grapples with what they truly want and what they've been too afraid to ask for. Friedland writes with a sharp eye for the small cruelties and quiet compromises that accumulate in family life, the ways we disappoint each other without meaning to and the debts we carry without acknowledgment. The novel moves between perspectives, allowing each Jacobson to make their case, to justify their choices, to reveal the private logic that governs their desires. The result is a portrait of a family at a crossroads, where sudden wealth becomes a mirror reflecting back all the things money can't fix. This is domestic fiction that understands the gap between what we say we want and what we're willing to sacrifice to get it, a story less about fortune than about the price of finally being honest.Publication dateJune 11, 2024Amazon rating4/5Print length384LanguageEnglishPublisherBerkley
Frequently Asked Questions about Elyssa Friedland
Elyssa Friedland writes both standalone novels and a series of children's books. For her standalone novels, there is no required reading order, as each book tells a separate story. Readers can choose any of her standalone novels to begin with. If you are interested in her children's books, The Museum of Lost Teeth is the first and currently only book in that series, so it should be read first.
A good place to start with Elyssa Friedland's books is with her standalone novels. Last Summer at the Golden Hotel, published in 2021, is a popular choice that many readers enjoy. Alternatively, The Most Likely Club, published in 2022, also offers a representative example of her writing. Since her adult novels are standalones, you can begin with whichever title catches your interest.
No, you do not have to read Elyssa Friedland's adult novels in any particular order. Each of her standalone novels, such as Love and Miss Communication, The Intermission, The Floating Feldmans, Last Summer at the Golden Hotel, and The Most Likely Club, tells a complete story that can be enjoyed independently. The only series she has written is for children, and The Museum of Lost Teeth is the first book in that collection.
Elyssa Friedland writes both standalone novels and a series of children's books. Her adult fiction consists entirely of standalone novels, meaning each book is independent and does not require prior reading of other titles. She also writes children's books, and The Museum of Lost Teeth is the first in that particular series.
Elyssa Friedland has written at least seven books. This includes six adult standalone novels: Love and Miss Communication (2015), The Intermission (2018), The Floating Feldmans (2019), Last Summer at the Golden Hotel (2021), The Most Likely Club (2022), and one additional title. She has also written one children's book, The Museum of Lost Teeth (2023).
The first book Elyssa Friedland wrote was Love and Miss Communication, published in 2015. This novel is part of her collection of standalone adult fiction. Following this debut, she went on to publish several other standalone novels, including The Intermission, The Floating Feldmans, Last Summer at the Golden Hotel, and The Most Likely Club. Her first children's book, The Museum of Lost Teeth, was released in 2023.
Elyssa Friedland's most recent book is The Museum of Lost Teeth, which was published in 2023. This book is part of a new series for children. Her latest adult standalone novel is The Most Likely Club, published in 2022, which explores themes of friendship and life transitions among a group of women.
Elyssa Friedland writes fiction for both adults and children. Her adult novels often focus on contemporary themes and relationships, exploring the complexities of friendship, family, and romance. Her children's book, The Museum of Lost Teeth, is aimed at a younger audience. Her adult works are characterized by engaging characters and relatable situations.
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We verified the reading order for Elyssa Friedland's books by cross-referencing official publication dates, ISBN databases, and publisher catalogs.
Last verified: April 2026
Shelf & Shadows. (…). “Elyssa Friedland Books in Order.” Retrieved …, from https://www.shelfandshadows.com/authors/elyssa-friedland