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Marlena
(OverDrive MP3 Audiobook, OverDrive Listen)

Book Cover
Average Rating
Published:
Blackstone Publishing 2017
Lexile measure:
970L
Status:
Available from OverDrive
Description

An electric debut novel about love, addiction, and loss; the story of two girls and the feral year that will cost one her life, and define the other's for decades

Everything about fifteen-year-old Cat's new town in rural Michigan is lonely and off-kilter, until she meets her neighbor, the manic, beautiful, pill-popping Marlena. Cat, inexperienced and desperate for connection, is quickly lured into Marlena's orbit by little more than an arched eyebrow and a shake of white-blond hair.

As the two girls turn the untamed landscape of their desolate small town into a kind of playground, Cat catalogues a litany of firsts—first drink, first cigarette, first kiss—while Marlena's habits harden and calcify. Within the year, Marlena is dead, drowned in six inches of icy water in the woods nearby.

Now, decades later, when a ghost from that pivotal year surfaces unexpectedly, Cat must try to forgive herself and move on, even as the memory of Marlena keeps her tangled in the past.

Alive with an urgent, unshakable tenderness, Julie Buntin's Marlena is an unforgettable look at the people who shape us beyond reason and the ways it might be possible to pull oneself back from the brink.

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More Details
Format:
OverDrive MP3 Audiobook, OverDrive Listen
Edition:
Unabridged
Street Date:
04/18/2017
Language:
English
ISBN:
9781504777575
Lexile measure:
970
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Citations
APA Citation (style guide)

Julie Buntin. (2017). Marlena. Unabridged Blackstone Publishing.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)

Julie Buntin. 2017. Marlena. Blackstone Publishing.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)

Julie Buntin, Marlena. Blackstone Publishing, 2017.

MLA Citation (style guide)

Julie Buntin. Marlena. Unabridged Blackstone Publishing, 2017.

Note! Citation formats are based on standards as of July 2022. Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy.
Copy Details
LibraryOwnedAvailable
Shared Digital Collection22
Staff View
Grouped Work ID:
e290780f-2f5b-c672-c661-292a07f79ee9
Go To Grouped Work
Needs Update?:
No
Date Added:
Jun 12, 2018 15:35:42
Date Updated:
Dec 13, 2020 02:40:55
Last Metadata Check:
Mar 24, 2024 06:53:54
Last Metadata Change:
Feb 08, 2024 17:56:20
Last Availability Check:
Mar 24, 2024 06:53:57
Last Availability Change:
Dec 04, 2023 17:43:18
Last Grouped Work Modification Time:
Mar 29, 2024 02:17:20

OverDrive Product Record

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        Julie Buntin is an author whose debut novel, Marlena, earned high acclaim and was named a Best Book of the Year by major media, including Vogue, the Washington Post, Esquire, Harper's Bazaar, NPR, Nylon, Huffington Post, Kirkus Reviews, and Barnes&Noble.com, among others. The book was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Leonard Prize and was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Her work has appeared in the Atlantic; Cosmopolitan; O, The Oprah Magazine; Slate; Electric Literature; and One Teen Story, among other publications. She teaches fiction writing at Marymount Manhattan College and is the director of writing programs at Catapult.

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publishDate
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edition
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title
Marlena
fullDescription

An electric debut novel about love, addiction, and loss; the story of two girls and the feral year that will cost one her life, and define the other's for decades

Everything about fifteen-year-old Cat's new town in rural Michigan is lonely and off-kilter, until she meets her neighbor, the manic, beautiful, pill-popping Marlena. Cat, inexperienced and desperate for connection, is quickly lured into Marlena's orbit by little more than an arched eyebrow and a shake of white-blond hair.

As the two girls turn the untamed landscape of their desolate small town into a kind of playground, Cat catalogues a litany of firsts—first drink, first cigarette, first kiss—while Marlena's habits harden and calcify. Within the year, Marlena is dead, drowned in six inches of icy water in the woods nearby.

Now, decades later, when a ghost from that pivotal year surfaces unexpectedly, Cat must try to forgive herself and move on, even as the memory of Marlena keeps her tangled in the past.

Alive with an urgent, unshakable tenderness, Julie Buntin's Marlena is an unforgettable look at the people who shape us beyond reason and the ways it might be possible to pull oneself back from the brink.

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      • value: Grade 5
      • value: Grade 6
      • value: Grade 7
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      • premium: True
      • source: Publisher's Weekly
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        Starred review from November 14, 2016
        In her impressive debut novel, Buntin displays a remarkable control of tone and narrative arc. In a keenly observed study of teenage character, narrator Catherine, 15, is miserable in the ramshackle house her newly divorced mother has bought in the dismal town of Silver Lake in northern Michigan. When she meets Marlena, her glamorous 17-year-old next-door neighbor, Cat is smitten with the euphoria of having a best friend. Buntin is particularly sensitive to the misery of adolescent angst, and Cat’s growing happiness in Marlena’s friendship runs like an electric wire through the narrative. Marlena is dangerous, however: she runs with a bad crowd, and her father cooks meth. From the beginning, we know that Marlena is irresistible, reckless, and brave; she’s a mother substitute for her forlorn younger brother—musically talented, beautiful, and doomed to die young. It’s only later that Cat understands that Marlena is the needy one in their relationship. Her bravado hides desperation; she fears she’ll never get out of Silver Lake, that she has no future, and that “there were kids like us all over rural America.” Almost 20 years later, living in New York with her husband and working at a good job, Cat is still damaged by losing Marlena. Crippled by “the pain at the utter core of me,” she takes refuge in alcohol and memories. The novel is poignant and unforgettable, a sustained eulogy for Marlena’s “glow... that lives in lost things, that sets apart the gone forever.” Agent: Claudia Ballard, WME Entertainment.

      • premium: True
      • source: AudioFile Magazine
      • content: Narrator Emma Galvin brings a slightly gritty yet vulnerable-sounding voice to the main character in this audiobook. When 15-year-old Cat moves to rural Michigan, she becomes friends with Marlena, who is troubled, manic, and dangerous. Unsupported by dysfunctional parents, Cat maneuvers the minefields of peer pressure in a world filled with alcohol, drugs, and poverty. As Cat tells her own story, the listener feels a heightened sense of danger and suspense. How is it that Marlena is found drowned in six inches of water in the woods later that year? The story is told in flashbacks when Cat is an adult, and the details of her experience are revealed as a haunting yet tender story of growing up. L.M.A. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
popularity
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shortDescription

An electric debut novel about love, addiction, and loss; the story of two girls and the feral year that will cost one her life, and define the other's for decades

Everything about fifteen-year-old Cat's new town in rural Michigan is lonely and off-kilter, until she meets her neighbor, the manic, beautiful, pill-popping Marlena. Cat, inexperienced and desperate for connection, is quickly lured into Marlena's orbit by little more than an arched eyebrow and a shake of white-blond hair.

As the two girls turn the untamed landscape of their desolate small town into a kind of playground, Cat catalogues a litany of firsts—first drink, first cigarette, first kiss—while Marlena's habits harden and calcify. Within the year, Marlena is dead, drowned in six inches of icy water in the woods nearby.

Now, decades later, when a ghost from that pivotal year surfaces unexpectedly, Cat must try to forgive herself and move on, even as the memory of Marlena keeps her...

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lexileScore
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publisher
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bisacCodes
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      • description: Fiction / Contemporary Women