A Signed First Edition Club Recommendation
"In The Burning Girl, Claire Messud—one of our finest, most perceptive novelists—examines the complexities of girls' attachments, especially when love and loss are present. I was captivated, much as I was by Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend. Julia and Cassie have been friends since nursery school. Julia, the 17-year old narrator of this compelling coming-of-age story, describes their relationship as they grow up, grow apart, and separate, trying to come to terms with the complexities of childhood friendship and young adult reality. As the Evening Standard said, 'Messud's gift is to understand the nuances of female friendship and believe that they are worthy of sustained and unhurried attention.'"
Publisher W. W. Norton & Company
Publication Date 2017-08-29
Section New Hardcover - Fiction / All Staff Suggestions
Format Hardcover
ISBN 9780393635027
A bracing, hypnotic coming-of-age story about the bond of best friends, from the New York Times best-selling author of The Emperor’s Children.
Julia and Cassie have been friends since nursery school. They have shared everything, including their desire to escape the stifling limitations of their birthplace, the quiet town of Royston, Massachusetts. But as the two girls enter adolescence, their paths diverge and Cassie sets out on a journey that will put her life in danger and shatter her oldest friendship. The Burning Girl is a complex examination of the stories we tell ourselves about youth and friendship, and straddles, expertly, childhood’s imaginary worlds and painful adult reality―crafting a true, immediate portrait of female adolescence.
Claire Messud, one of our finest novelists, is as accomplished at weaving a compelling fictional world as she is at asking the big questions: To what extent can we know ourselves and others? What are the stories we create to comprehend our lives and relationships? Brilliantly mixing fable and coming-of-age tale, The Burning Girl gets to the heart of these matters in an absolutely irresistible way.
