Green Girl
Conceptual
Enigmatic
Intense

Green Girl A Novel

Kate Zambreno2014
With the fierce emotional and intellectual power of such classics as Jean Rhys's Good Morning, Midnight, Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, and Clarice Lispector's The Hour of the Star, Kate Zambreno's novel Green Girl is a provocative, sharply etched portrait of a young woman navigating the spectrum between anomie and epiphany. First published in 2011 in a small press edition, Green Girl was named one of the best books of the year by critics including Dennis Cooper and Roxane Gay. In Bookforum, James Greer called it "ambitious in a way few works of fiction are." This summer it is being republished in an all-new Harper Perennial trade paperback, significantly revised by the author, and including an extensive P.S. section including never before published outtakes, an interview with the author, and a new essay by Zambreno. Zambreno's heroine, Ruth, is a young American in London, kin to Jean Seberg gamines and contemporary celebutantes, by day spritzing perfume at the department store she calls Horrids, by night trying desperately to navigate a world colored by the unwanted gaze of others and the uncertainty of her own self-regard. Ruth, the green girl, joins the canon of young people existing in that important, frightening, and exhilarating period of drift and anxiety between youth and adulthood, and her story is told through the eyes of one of the most surprising and unforgettable narrators in recent fiction—a voice at once distanced and maternal, indulgent yet blackly funny. And the result is a piercing yet humane meditation on alienation, consumerism, the city, self-awareness, and desire, by a novelist who has been compared with Jean Rhys, Virginia Woolf, and Elfriede Jelinek.
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Reviews

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Caitlin Berger@thefluteyfeminist
3 stars
Jul 29, 2021

I feel like this was one of those books where it's hard to tell if it's super brilliant or really shitty. I liked the writing style but the story was a little...woe is me for little to no apparent reason? It was still worth the read. I think.

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Nikki Cannon@nikkicannon
3.5 stars
Sep 5, 2024
+3
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Alisa @sherly
2 stars
Aug 10, 2022
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Heather Margaret@heatherdarling
4 stars
Jun 9, 2024
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Clara Olausson@clara1
4 stars
Feb 25, 2024
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heleen de boever@hlndb
4 stars
Apr 14, 2023
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Emily@emilydreadful
3 stars
Jan 25, 2023
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Christine@cluprete
3 stars
Sep 9, 2022
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Jean A@jeangreenbean
4 stars
Aug 14, 2022
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Suz Corso@suzcorso
4 stars
Feb 23, 2022
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Moray Lyle McIntosh@bookish_arcadia
3 stars
Dec 5, 2021
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Ruby Huber@rubyread
3 stars
Nov 17, 2021
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𝓋𝒾𝒸𝓉𝑜𝓇𝒾𝒶@ghoulscout
2 stars
Oct 6, 2021

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