A Better Life, Lionel Shriver
A Better Life, Lionel Shriver
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A Better Life
A Novel

Author: Lionel Shriver

Narrator: George Newbern

Unabridged: 10 hr 35 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Harper

Published: 02/10/2026

Synopsis

In a provocative novel addressing contemporary immigration by the sharply observant Lionel Shriver, a New York family takes in a Honduran migrant—who may or may not be the innocent paragon she claims to be.Gloria Bonaventura, a divorced mother of three living with her 26-year-old son Nico in a sprawling house in Brooklyn, decides to participate in a new city program that would pay her to take in a migrant as a boarder. Gloria is thrilled when sweet, kind, helpful Martine arrives. But Nico is skeptical. A classic live-at-home Gen Zer with no interest in adulthood, Nico resents any interruption of his “hovercraft repose.”As the months go by, Martine endears herself to both Nico’s sisters, while finding her way into Gloria’s heart and even, briefly, Nico’s. But as Martine’s disturbingly dodgy compatriots begin to show up, Nico conceives a dark twin hostile to both his mother’s altruism and the “migrant crisis” in general—and turns out to be anything but a reliable narrator himself.Based loosely on a program a New York City mayor floated but did not initiate, A Better Life is Lionel Shriver at her best: smart, funny, and sensitive to the moral nuances of perhaps the most divisive issue of our times.

About Lionel Shriver

Lionel Shriver has published many novels, a collection of essays, and a column in the Spectator since 2017, and her journalism has been featured in publications including Harper’s, the London Times, UnHerd, and The Wall Street Journal, among many others. A multiply best-selling writer and winner of the UK’s Orange Prize, she lives in Portugal and Brooklyn, New York.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Kate on January 14, 2026

Lionel Shriver has never shied away from controversial subjects and A Better Life continues this tradition. After slamming an out of control education system in Mania, this time she has focused on immigration. New York has launched its Big Apple Big Heart initiative. Not satisfied with being a sanctu......more

Goodreads review by CPE on January 21, 2026

Lionel Shriver’s new book, A Better Life, should be compulsory reading for all politicians. It’s a masterclass in showing how gullible naïve people, who refuse to recognise that there are some bad people out there, are viewed as turkeys ready for plucking by said villains. In this fictional world, Gl......more

Goodreads review by Adrian on December 12, 2025

A truly fascinating read. I was given Shriver’s A Better Life from NetGalley and HarperCollins Press in exchange for an honest review. Shriver’s book is very much satirical and terrifying in its scope. The better life in question is for Martine, a Honduran immigrant who moves in with the Bonaventura f......more

Goodreads review by Rachel on January 13, 2026

Lionel Shriver is best known for writing books on controversial subjects and she’s done it again, focusing this time on immigration. Gloria Bonaventura is a liberal and a divorced mother of 3, living with her grown up son Nico in a large house in Brooklyn. The house was bought long before the area b......more

Goodreads review by Jamad on December 27, 2025

I found A Better Life to be a characteristically sharp and provocative Lionel Shriver novel, though one that left me admiring the ideas more than the execution. Rather than offering a neat plot-driven narrative, the book is best understood as a satirical examination of contemporary attitudes to immig......more

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