Author: Hannah Pittard
Publisher: Ecco
Publish Date: February 1, 2011
Source: Library
Why You're Reading This Book:
- You're a fan of Jeffrey Eugenides.
- You always wonder what if.
- You're okay with the suspension of your disbelief.
From Goodreads.com: "Sixteen-year-old Nora Lindell is missing. And the neighborhood boys she's left behind are caught forever in the heady current of her absence.
As the days and years pile up, the mystery of her disappearance grows kaleidoscopically. A collection of rumors, divergent suspicions, and tantalizing what-ifs, Nora Lindell's story is a shadowy projection of teenage lust, friendship, reverence, and regret, captured magically in the disembodied plural voice of the boys who still long for her.
Told in haunting, percussive prose, Hannah Pittard's beautifully crafted novel tracks the emotional progress of the sister Nora left behind, the other families in their leafy suburban enclave, and the individual fates of the boys in her thrall. Far more eager to imagine Nora's fate than to scrutinize their own, the boys sleepwalk into an adulthood of jobs, marriages, families, homes, and daughters of their own, all the while pining for a girl–and a life–that no longer exists, except in the imagination."
My Two Cents:
This is definitely a book that is growing on me the more that I think about it. It took awhile to get used to how it was written (first person plural, thus the Eugenides likeness). I think a lot of us have episodes from our adolescence that stick with us. Traumatic events that seem to stick out in our minds for whatever reason. For the teenage boys in this story, Nora Lindell's disappearance is the event that haunts them all. With their collective remembrance, they piece together what happened and what may have happened to Nora after she disappeared.
At first I didn't like the first person plural writing style. It's not a very common style of writing and it's a little disconcerting. I found myself wondering why this group of people all had the same memory of Nora but Pittard kind of shows how little by little, this group of boys adds to the legend of Nora and to the sister that she left behind. I thought the writing style worked very well for that.
Bottom line, this book definitely will make you think a little bit and make you step outside of your comfort zone. The journey is well worth it.
My Review:
4 out of 5 stars
Sounds like a great book and I don't mind first person plural at all so I'm definitely adding it to my TBR! Thanks for the great review :)
ReplyDeleteThis isn't a genre I read a lot of it, and even though I got pulled into the story I still had a lot of problems with it. The change in voice really annoyed me for some reason.
ReplyDeleteI do have a copy of this and was curios, but hadn't seen many reviews. Thank you for yours:)
ReplyDelete@Kat @ NoPageLeftBehind It's a good one!
ReplyDelete@A Buckeye Girl Reads It took me a lot to get over the change in voice too!
ReplyDelete@(Diane) Bibliophile By the Sea It's a book worth reading!
ReplyDelete