Just when things were going so well. Jess had the perfect summer planned: She and Fred, lounging in the park, gazing into one another’s eyes and engaging in witty repartee. It was going to be so romantic. And then her maddening mum stepped in: She suddenly announced a two-week “road trip” to Cornwall to visit Jess’s dad, something Jess might have enjoyed, actually, were it not for the monstrously bad timing. Not only will this force Jess and Fred apart for two whole weeks, it will also leave the darling and handsome Fred in the clutches of Jess’s blindingly beautiful best friend, Flora—who, you might recall, expressed an interest in Fred not too long ago. As if all this weren’t enough, Jess’s mum seems to expect her to weep at the grave of every departed literary hero in Britain’s long history. It’s absolute torture. And little does Jess know, a huge surprise awaits her when she visits her dad at his home for the first time in years.
Girl, 15, Charming But Insane, huge bum, massive ears, seeks ... Well, seeks Ben Jones, but failing that, large Muslim-type burka garment to cover her deformities. Life can be trying when your best friend is a goddess, you are a woeful underachiever, and Ben Jones won't even look in your direction. Painfully spot on, Girl, 15 reveals with Technicolor precision the agony and the ecstasy (and the embarrassment) of being a teenager. With razor-sharp observation and deadpan humour we are offered a privileged peek at the life of Jess, 15, charming, but most definitely insane. This novel has a unique voice and humour that will make you want to read it again and again - if you can bring yourself to put it down in the first place.
Girl, 15, Charming But Insane, huge bum, massive ears, seeks . . . Well, seeks Ben Jones, but failing that, large Muslim-type burka garment to cover her deformities. Life can be trying when your best friend is a goddess, you are a woeful underachiever, and Ben Jones won't even look in your direction. Painfully spot on, Girl, 15, reveals with Technicolor precision the agony and the ecstasy (and the embarrassment) of being a teenager. With razor-sharp observation and deadpan humour we are offered a privileged peek at the life of Jess, 15, charming, but most definitely insane. This novel has a unique voice and humour that will make you want to read it again and again - if you can bring yourself to put it down in the first place.
It's the long, hot summer between high school and college, and Jaime Cody is working a double shift. Days at a greasy spoon called Franklin's All-American Diner; night at the Phoenix, a restaurant at a glitzy resort. She's hoping to earn the college money her father stole from her -- and leave herself no time to think. A whole country lies between where Jaime is -- Arizona -- and where she wants to be -- Bryn Mawr, a college for women in Pennsylvania. The jobs mean the difference between making a life for herself and being duped by a man, the way her mother was. The plan is perfect -- until a boy named Buddy appears, reminding her of a character in the romantic stories her mother still loves to tell. No one has to know about Buddy. He's Jaime's secret. Just for the summer.
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LA TIMES BOOK PRIZE FINALIST NBCC JOHN LEONARD PRIZE FINALIST ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES'S MOST NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2017 ONE OF THE WASHINGTON POST’S MOST NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2017 ONE OF NPR’S ‘GREAT READS’ OF 2017 A USA TODAY BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR AN AMAZON.COM BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR A BUSINESS INSIDER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR "Impossible to put down." —NPR "A novel that readers will gulp down, gasping.” —The Washington Post "The word 'masterpiece' has been cheapened by too many blurbs, but My Absolute Darling absolutely is one." —Stephen King A brilliant and immersive, all-consuming read about one fourteen-year-old girl's heart-stopping fight for her own soul. Turtle Alveston is a survivor. At fourteen, she roams the woods along the northern California coast. The creeks, tide pools, and rocky islands are her haunts and her hiding grounds, and she is known to wander for miles. But while her physical world is expansive, her personal one is small and treacherous: Turtle has grown up isolated since the death of her mother, in the thrall of her tortured and charismatic father, Martin. Her social existence is confined to the middle school (where she fends off the interest of anyone, student or teacher, who might penetrate her shell) and to her life with her father. Then Turtle meets Jacob, a high-school boy who tells jokes, lives in a big clean house, and looks at Turtle as if she is the sunrise. And for the first time, the larger world begins to come into focus: her life with Martin is neither safe nor sustainable. Motivated by her first experience with real friendship and a teenage crush, Turtle starts to imagine escape, using the very survival skills her father devoted himself to teaching her. What follows is a harrowing story of bravery and redemption. With Turtle's escalating acts of physical and emotional courage, the reader watches, heart in throat, as this teenage girl struggles to become her own hero—and in the process, becomes ours as well. Shot through with striking language in a fierce natural setting, My Absolute Darling is an urgently told, profoundly moving read that marks the debut of an extraordinary new writer.
Whose truth is the lie? Stay up all night reading the sensational psychological thriller that has readers obsessed, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Too Late and It Ends With Us. #1 New York Times Bestseller · USA Today Bestseller · Globe and Mail Bestseller · Publishers Weekly Bestseller Lowen Ashleigh is a struggling writer on the brink of financial ruin when she accepts the job offer of a lifetime. Jeremy Crawford, husband of bestselling author Verity Crawford, has hired Lowen to complete the remaining books in a successful series his injured wife is unable to finish. Lowen arrives at the Crawford home, ready to sort through years of Verity’s notes and outlines, hoping to find enough material to get her started. What Lowen doesn’t expect to uncover in the chaotic office is an unfinished autobiography Verity never intended for anyone to read. Page after page of bone-chilling admissions, including Verity's recollection of the night her family was forever altered. Lowen decides to keep the manuscript hidden from Jeremy, knowing its contents could devastate the already grieving father. But as Lowen’s feelings for Jeremy begin to intensify, she recognizes all the ways she could benefit if he were to read his wife’s words. After all, no matter how devoted Jeremy is to his injured wife, a truth this horrifying would make it impossible for him to continue loving her.
Updated with a new introduction, this fifteenth anniversary edition of A Return to Modesty reignites Wendy Shalit’s controversial claim that we have lost our respect for an essential virtue: modesty. When A Return to Modesty was first published in 1999, its argument launched a worldwide discussion about the possibility of innocence and romantic idealism. Wendy Shalit was the first to systematically critique the "hook-up" scene and outline the harms of making sexuality so public. Today, with social media increasingly blurring the line between public and private life, and with child exploitation on the rise, the concept of modesty is more relevant than ever. Updated with a new preface that addresses the unique problems facing society now, A Return to Modesty shows why "the lost virtue" of modesty is not a hang-up that we should set out to cure, but rather a wonderful instinct to be celebrated. A Return to Modesty is a deeply personal account as well as a fascinating intellectual exploration into everything from seventeenth-century manners to the 1948 tune "Baby, It’s Cold Outside." Beholden neither to social conservatives nor to feminists, Shalit reminds us that modesty is not prudery, but a natural instinct—and one that may be able to save us from ourselves.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A stunning “portrait of the enduring grace of friendship” (NPR) about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. A masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century. NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST • WINNER OF THE KIRKUS PRIZE A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves. Look for Hanya Yanagihara’s latest bestselling novel, To Paradise.
