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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I’ve never read anything like this
Could actually happen.
Kept me in suspense
Wow. I did not see that coming.
I found parts of the story to be to long. Author could have used fewer words and still got the point across.
it sucked me right in….really written well. the characters are well filled out..I really felt like I knew them. totally drawn into their story.
Dark, disturbing, hard to read and also I needed a dictionary for some of the words but definitely good!
This book will get your attention stay with you and inspire you to do more for your fellow human beings.
I found this book upsetting and depressing. I have wondered how the author’s mind could have imagined such horrid details of the abuse of Martin’s daughter. Not a very uplifting story.
This is the best book I have read all year. The characters were well developed. I really got involved with the plot.
Scary to think that there are peoplelike Martin who live to hurt and control others.
Beautiful descriptive writing in an often brutal story.
My Absolute Darling could easily trigger anyone who has been through a traumatic childhood, but the writing is amazing. If you want to understand why children want to stay with an abusive parent or the dynamic of childhood trauma, read this book. It is lyrically and powerfully written.
Turtle is uniquely compelling. You’ll argue with her when she lies to herself and cheer her lesser and greater triumphs.
This book is for mature readers only. It contains heartrending scenes of incestuous rape and pedophila. The modern coming of age saga reverts back to the sort of indiscriminate violence and misunderstood bravado found in Voltaire’s Candide. Here as there, an innocent protagonist accepts authority in a painfully unquestioning manner. We breathe easier st the end, just a bit.
Wild girl fights for tragic happily ever-after.
This is the most amazing story I have ever read. It is shocking, entertaining and just gets better and better. It is about severe family dysfunction of the worst kind. It keeps you on the edge of your seat. The personality of the little girl who is 14 is quite marvelous of what she goes through and how she stays sane. All of the characters are well developed. This book should get some type of aware for its thoroughness of character development and story. Love it.
original
Upsetting story – beautifully written
Horrifying…and stunning.
Although beautifully written, abuse of a child is such a raw subject I don’t recommend this book for everyone. If you have the stomach for it Tallent will take you there. Go, for the Rabbits of the world. They are real and this is happening.
I did not care for this book.
Hard book to read, definitely not for everyone.
Pretty awful people in this book. Not an easy read. Baffles me how this was PBS’sBook of the year in 2017. Get ready to be grossed out if you read it. It is well written and I know there are people like this out there, just don’t like them.