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The Girls from Corona del Mar
- Author
- Rufi Thorpe
- Narrator
- Rebecca Lowman
- Publisher
- Random House
- Publish Date
- 25 February 2016
- Run Time
- 9 hours 36 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
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What to expect
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2014 DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE
Mia and Lorrie Ann are lifelong friends: hard-hearted Mia and untouchably beautiful, kind Lorrie Ann. While Mia struggles with a mother who drinks, a pregnancy at fifteen, and younger brothers she loves but can't quite be good to, Lorrie Ann is luminous, surrounded by her close-knit family, immune to the mistakes that mar her best friend's life. Until a sudden loss catapults Lorrie Ann into tragedy: things fall apart, and then fall apart further – and there is nothing Mia can do to help. And as good, kind, brave Lorrie Ann stops being so good, Mia begins to question just who this woman is and what that question means about them both. A staggeringly arresting, honest novel of love, motherhood, loyalty, and the myth of the perfect friendship that moves us to ask ourselves just how well we know those we love, what we owe our children, and who we are without our friends.
Critics Review
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This debut from Rufi Thorpe grips immediately, with the sharp compelling pressure of a friend grabbing your hand in pain … a brilliantly written, probing, uneasy look at a damaged friendship between two women.
Independent on Sunday
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Observant, sometimes funny and continuously thought-provoking, the novel delves into the meaning of friendship, motherhood, freedom, truth and lies.
Daily Mail
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The Girls From Corona del Mar is a knockout of a debut novel . . . Her worldly, rambunctious, feminist, morally interrogative prose style galvanizes every episode with smart, almost cosmic insights, tough talk, elegiac moments of love, dumb wonder, and, of course, further tragic events.
Elle
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Her depiction of female friendship is engaging and sharply observed . . . Seldom has Schadenfreude been more appetisingly packaged.
New Statesman
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Rufi Thorpe's open-hearted, open-eyed debut tells the engrossing story of a long friendship between two complex women and investigates the unpredictable, often baffling ways that luck shapes all of our lives. Generous, soulful, and tough.
Maggie Shipstead, bestselling author of SEATING ARRANGEMENTS
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The Girls from Corona del Mar is a slim book that leaves a deep impression. Mia and Lorrie Ann are vivid and fully formed, and their stories provoke strong emotions that linger like lived memory. Thorpe is a gifted writer who depicts friendship with affection and brutality, rendering all its love and heartbreak in painstaking strokes.
Los Angeles Times
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It’s hard to believe [this] is Rufi Thorpe’s first novel — she writes like someone who has been through the wringer, like writers of the past who wrote because they needed to, because they had a problem with the way life was and had to tell someone. The Girls from Corona del Mar belongs in a different era, like something that could have been written during the days of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway.
Boston Herald
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The Girls from Corona del Mar’s raw, lyrical tone resonates—a gratifyingly honest dispatch from the battle lines of young womanhood.
Entertainment Weekly
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Rufi Thorpe had me at the first line in her funny, sad, delightful debut novel, The Girls from Corona del Mar. A story about friendship, love, loss, and the sheer unexpectedness of life. Reading this book was like getting to know old friends; I was sorry when I turned the last page.
Anton DiSclafani, of THE YONAHLOSSEE RIDING CAMP FOR GIRLS
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The Girls from Corona del Mar is one of those rare books that breaks down the wall between reality and fiction; the entire time I read this book I ached as if it were my own best friend whose life was unraveling before me. Day and night I thought of her—I still think of her! Rufi Thorpe is a brilliant writer and this is a beautiful first book.
Vanessa Diffenbaugh, author of THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS
User Reviews
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Details
- Author
- Rufi Thorpe
- Narrator
- Rebecca Lowman
- Duration
- 9 hours 36 minutes
- Release Date
- 25 February 2016
- ISBN
- 9781473537385
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Random House
- Genre
- Modern and contemporary fiction: literary and general, Family life fiction / Stories about family, Narrative theme: death, grief, loss, Narrative theme: love / relationships
Synopsis
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2014 DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE Mia and Lorrie Ann are lifelong friends: hard-hearted Mia and untouchably beautiful, kind Lorrie Ann. While Mia struggles with a mother who drinks, a pregnancy at fifteen, and younger brothers she loves but can't quite be good to, Lorrie Ann is luminous, surrounded by her close-knit family, immune to the mistakes that mar her best friend's life. Until a sudden loss catapults Lorrie Ann into tragedy: things fall apart, and then fall apart further – and there is nothing Mia can do to help. And as good, kind, brave Lorrie Ann stops being so good, Mia begins to question just who this woman is and what that question means about them both. A staggeringly arresting, honest novel of love, motherhood, loyalty, and the myth of the perfect friendship that moves us to ask ourselves just how well we know those we love, what we owe our children, and who we are without our friends.
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