INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LA TIMES BOOK PRIZE FINALISTNBCC JOHN LEONARD PRIZE FINALISTONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES’S MOST NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2017ONE OF THE WASHINGTON POST’S MOST NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2017ONE OF NPR’S ‘GREAT READS’ OF 2017A 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 … 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.
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Did not like this book. Too much sexual detail in child abuse. Not a fan.
Terrible. Really brutal. Man abuses daughter sexually and emotionally.
This book was hard reading and sometimes I had reread
I found this to be an inside look at a profoundly disturbing life. My emotions and my instincts were at war as I read it. I don’t want to say anymore as I don’t want to spoil this read. Just be warned that you will be thinking about it long after you finish it.
This book was too crazy for me. I found it to be unbelievable and kind of senseless.
Do not read. Sick, nothing redemptive in this awfull book.
It is very dark, not something I would read often, but well done.
Not my kind of book…………repetitive and violent………didn’t like the narrator using slang for women’s body parts…..i.e. instead of using the slang “pussy” which degraded the young girl. he should have used the proper name “vagina”…..giving her respect
A fabulous book, not for the faint of heart.
It was a thriller of sorts. Well written but somewhat drawn out.
Needed a good editor and an author who knew how children respond to sexual abuse.
Hard to follow.
I feel compelled after reading so many mixed reviews of this book to write this one myself. I wondered how it was possible that editors, critics, and novelists (including Stephen King) could find this to be a remarkable novel and give it lavish praise, while a significant group of Amazon customers found it sordid without any redeeming merit.
On its face it is a story of resilience, strength, and hope with the heroine, 14-year-old Julia (also known as “Turtle’) who suffers abuse and incest but not only survives the ordeal but transcends it to eliminate her abuser and triumph. Some readers found the topic “disturbing,” the descriptions “graphic and unnecessary,” even “grueling, painful and excessive.” These readers chose to ignore the finely- crafted elements of the novel: the interior dialogues of the character, her conflict of emotions, the deep insights into the human psyche that the author provides, and the psychological tension.
This is a book that was both a L.A. Times Finalist and a Washington Post Finalist for Book of the Year. It garnered praise from a host of reviews, critics, and fellow authors. So why this backlash from some readers?
I think the answer lies is the nuanced approach to the father of Julia. He lost his wife and is raising his daughter alone. Julia looks a bit like the wife and reminds him of her. He is fraught with anger and frustration at his loss. He is also part of the American gun culture and has taught his daughter not only how to shoot rifles and pistols, but also had to clear a house in a kind of daily “Hogan’s Alley” practice with targets at various places. He has taught her to be tough and resilient. How to hunt, to recognize edible plants, how to cook and to prepare healthy meals. He is also obsessed with his daughter in a protective and loving way which has morphed after his wife’s death into a dangerous and ugly incest.
He is hot-tempered, smart, well-read, macho, and dangerous. Few men would dare challenge him. Women are attracted to him but also a bit intimidated. Eve a female teacher who suspects abuse is unwilling to challenge him. In other words, he is a man who has all the ingredients of American father: productive, touch, resilient, respected, practiced with arms, independent and self-reliant, and living almost (but not quite) off the grid. Yet, all these qualities taken to the extreme result in grotesque. And it is this type of character that Gabriel Talent has created and one that we have seen before in the works of Sherwood Anderson, Herman Melville, William Faulkner, Flanner O’Connor, and others. Disturbing and painful, but full of insight into the human condition in all its psychological complexity.
This is the monster we see, and he is a funhouse mirror, not just the made-in America gun-toting macho, but all fathers, and the female characters as well despite (and sometimes because) of their positive qualities which are carried to an extreme: whether a teacher who is doubtful and reluctant, or the neighboring mother who is convinced of the relaxed approach to child supervision. As Yeats once wrote, “The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity.”
So, Gabriel Talent created a work that is both meaningful and disturbing. It challenges us to look at ourselves, our society, as well as our natural surroundings with true attention. It is also a reminder of what Stephen King knows well: The same force that creates monsters can bring forth unforgettable literature as well.
It is rare for me to absolutely despise a book. In fact, I can’t think of any other book I’ve hated this much. This is garbage masquerading as literature. Vile child abuse. It is abhorrent. What child would refer to herself as the c- word? No, just no. Plus endless descriptions of the fauna of the region. This entire book is horrible.
Ok
Pretentious drivel. I am not put off by the subject of child sexual abuse if it is handled well. It was grossly off-putting in this novel. If he did any research or talked to any survivors of child abuse it doesn’t show. I would have thrown the novel across the room, after his first pornographic description, if it wasn’t on my kindle. I almost did anyway. Can you give zero stars here?
It was hard to put down. It was sad, haunting, fascinating, even a little heartbreaking.
The main character is abused by her father in every possible way. It was not something I would recommend to anyone. Horrific story.
This book was so engrossing I couldn’t put it down. Some of it was disgusting but I kept hoping Turtle would prevail. So in the end it was uplifting. It was an amazing book.
A difficult subject is handled with empathy and sensitivity. The characters are realistic and the writing is exceptional.