The Foreigners

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The Foreigners
272 pages; Riverhead Hardcover
Why we loved it: One single American divorcée, two new mysterious friends to go out with, an entire city of handsome, sexy, endlessly interested Argentine men.

What made us want to move to Buenos Aires: "Flamboyant, the Buenos Aires trees bloom not once but at several seasons. The jacaranda tree has pale purple blossoms that fall off long before they're withered, littering the ground with pale purple trumpets; the palo borracho has pink blossoms, hand-sized, the whole tree flames up with them; the small yellow flowers on the tipa trees give off a dizzying scent. ... On the lawn that falls down from the Plaza San Martin, people lie out to sunbathe or sleep, exhausted in the middle of day. ... In the evenings, in darker spots, near where there are trees, you could practically make love, and people do."

The bigger picture: Does living in a foreign country—far from friends and family—help you discover who you already are? Or help reinvent you into the person you've always wanted to be?

The guilty pleasure: Traveling through the aristocratic, glittering cocktail parties of the Argentine elite, where Europeans and Americans are elevated—for better or for worse—to the status of semiroyality.

The authentic surprise: Nobody tangos.
— Leigh Newman