'Julie Buntin’s standout debut novel, Marlena. But it remains fascinating nonetheless, especially in Buntin’s capable hands.' -The Boston Globe 'A vivid portrait of a friendship between two teen girls in a troubled community that captures the heartaches of adolescence.At every turn, Buntin’s prose flows with the easy, confident rhythms of an accomplished writer, and though there’s really no mystery in the narrative, it reads nearly as compulsively as a thriller.The tale of two friends, one who succeeds and one who fails, isn’t new-it’s the entire focus of Elena Ferrante’s wildly popular Neapolitan books.

Marlena is a novel about youth-a time of splendor and squalor. lyricism is precise and revelatory, capable of great beauty and, when called for, great ugliness. sweeps you up without too much explication, becoming both a painful exorcism and a devoted memorial to friends and selves who are gone.' - The New York Times Book Review 'At the center of Julie Buntin’s debut novel is the kind of coming-of-age friendship that goes beyond camaraderie, into a deeper bond that forges identity it’s friendship as a creative act, a collaborative work of imagination.This generous, sensitive novel of true feeling. Told in a haunting dialogue between past and present, Marlena is the captivating story of an intoxicating, indelible friendship that does not flinch from the resonant effects of its loss. Now, decades later, Cat must try again to move on, even as the memory of Marlena calls her back.

Within a year, Marlena is dead, drowned in six inches of icy water in the woods nearby. Cat is quickly drawn into Marlena’s orbit and as she catalogues a litany of firsts-first drink, first cigarette, first kiss, first pill-Marlena’s habits harden and calcify. Named an Indie Next Pick and a Barnes and Noble Discover PickĮverything 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. Named a Best Book of the Year by Vogue, BuzzFeed, The Washington Post, Esquire, Harper's Bazaar, NPR, NYLON, Huffington Post, Kirkus Reviews, Barnes & NobleĬhosen for the Book of the Month Club, Nylon Book Club, and Belletrist Book Club Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize A National Book Critics Circle Leonard Prize Finalist

Marlena julie buntin review