C. J. Farley – författare

"Electrifying and smart, Who Knows You By Heart is part thriller, part prophecy, part gift and all the way live."--Junot Diaz

Scintillates with light and warmthAnd its hilariously funny. The view of Big Tech through Olivia the coders eyes is delicious. I absolutely loved this book.Alison Bechdel

Part social thriller, part modern love story, Who Knows You by Heart is a sly, witty, and endlessly discussable tale of Big Tech, new money, relationships, race, and discovering whats real in an age of artificial intelligence.

Octavia Crenshaw, a Jamaican-American coder living in Manhattan, is broke, burned out, and haunted by her parents deaths. Desperate to pay off some debts, she ditches her nonprofit job for a high-paying gig at Eustachian Inc., a Big Tech company that specializes in audio entertainment. Language, communication, human connectionthese are the markets Eustachian wants to revolutionize...and dominate.

Octavia finds herself swept up in the world of the Tech Titans, with its lure of instant riches and its seemingly limitless future. But as one of Eustachians very few Black employees, Octavia is uncomfortably aware of things that seem to escape her coworkers: unexplained tech glitches, cryptic remarks, a mysterious secret floor in the corporations gleaming headquarters.

But she sets her suspicions aside when shes recruited by another Black coderthe infuriating but attractive Walcottto collaborate on a secret project code-named Zion. Zion is a new kind of AI-powered storytelling, one thats programmed to be free from the racist and sexist biases that plague other AI products. Zion could launch Eustachian into a bold new future and make its developers super rich while righting all kinds of injustices. Octavia and Walcotts excitement over their creation sets off romantic sparks between the two of them, until they discover a toxic secret about their employersomething that they cant unlearn, or overlook, but must overcome.

Race, class, and hormones combine and combust when a Harvard freshman and his two friends attempt to join the staff of the Harpoon, the school''s iconic humor magazine.

Around Harvard Square is the winner of the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work (Youth/Teens)!

Around Harvard Square has been named a 2020 Honor Book by the Paterson Prize for Books for Young People

"A smart, satirical novel about surviving the racial and cultural tensions ratcheted up in the elite Harvard hothouse. Farley has created a marvelously engaging and diverse set of characters, at the center of which is a nerdy Jamaican American with a philosophical bent and his cohort of oddballs struggling to win a spot on Harvard''s brainy humor magazine, which provides a springboard for Farley to dive into the ethics of comedy, among other subjects."--National Book Review, included in Monday''s 5 Hot Books

"For anyone who likes satire, this quick-witted tale...catches a bundle of truths about a very particular and powerful corner of our world."--New West Indian Guide

"Around Harvard Square [is] C.J. Farley''s fun novel about an exceptional Jamaican student-athlete facing class and race issues to get a spot on an elite Harvard University humor magazine."--New York Daily News, included in CaribBeat column

"C.J. Farley''s Around Harvard Square is a witty and artful narrative of a society on the crossroads of change...A must read."--The Gleaner (Jamaica)

Included in the American Booksellers Association''s ABC Best Books for Young Adult Readers 2019!

Included in Publishers Weekly''s Spring 2019 Children''s Announcements

Included in Rich in Color''s Six Books to Kickstart April

"In his new novel, Around Harvard Square, Farley writes about a scandal strikingly similar to how Singer helped parents and coaches allegedly exploit athletic programs of schools like Yale, Georgetown, and USC."--Fox 5 (New York)

"This former Lampoon editor, journalist, and now satirical novelist, has lots of insight into the discrepancies around race and gender that remain present in the comedy industry."--CityLine (WCVB-TV Boston)

"Around Harvard Square brings social commentary to college life, approaching the issues in a humorous attitude...Farley makes the injustices more tangible to a younger audience who may be future students at such institutions, and he shows how little progression has been made in the educational system regarding institutional racism."--Prism Review

Tosh Livingston, superstar student-athlete from small-town USA, thinks he''s made it big as a rising freshman at Harvard University. Not so fast! Once on campus, he''s ensnared in a frenzied competition to win a spot on Harvard''s legendary humor magazine, the Harpoon. Tosh soon finds that joining the Harpoon is a weird and surprisingly dangerous pursuit. He faces off against a secret society of super-rich kids, gets schooled by a philosophy professor who loves flunking everyone, and teams up with a genius student-cartoonist with an agenda of her own. Along the way, Tosh and his band of misfit freshman friends unearth long-buried mysteries about the Ivy League that will rock the Ivory Tower and change their lives forever...if they can survive the semester.

With its whip-smart humor and fast-paced narrative, Around Harvard Square will appeal to readers of all ages interested in exploring the complicated roles that race and class play in higher education.