Name: Heather Margaret's review of Marlena by Julie Buntin
Item: Marlena
Rating: 5
Author: Heather Margaret

Julie Buntin

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.

A Novel

Marlena

Valeria M

Heather Margaret

Sadly with the epidemic of opioid addictions happening in the world today this book fits right in. I am still thinking constantly about this book after reading it. It seemed to be so effortlessly written. The perfect amount of pretty words that mixed with the harsh reality of life, especially the life of girls, and the life of losing someone so quickly and soon in your life without knowing who you are as a person. I am completely in love.

azliana aziz

heartsick.

the drag in the middle part held me back from full 5* but oh my julie buntin's way with words 💕

Kelly Wynne

"Out of all the books I’ve read, Marlena is the first I’ve truly felt one with the characters. Throughout the group’s midnight escapades, I felt as if I were with them, due to Buntin’s incredible wording and poetic approach at a topic so over-glamorized. Though the storyline, set in a small, run-down Michigan town, is filled with a certain nostalgia that makes the characters inviting, the verbage used takes aim at the comfort found within and twists it for what it is: haunting and harmful."

Read more here: http://www.justcutthebullshit.com/hom...

Alexa M

Amy Thibodeau

Laura

In my review for The Burning Girl, I mentioned by general disinterest in stories about intense female friendships, mostly because there is rarely anything new or insightful said about it. And yet I still read Marlena because, well, I don't know, it seemed to have more teeth than the aforementioned The Burning Girl, given that it is about a poverty-stricken area in upstate Michigan, and deals with issues like meth addiction. 

Our main character, Cat, moves to upstate Michigan with her mother and brother after her parents divorce because, of course, her father has an affair with a much younger women. Sometimes I wonder if authors have heard of this thing called "no-fault divorce" because it seems like every broken home is because of the father having an affair. I don't think I've ever read a book where two people get divorced, but it's okay because they both love their children and want to share custody. Believe it or not, that happens, too.

Anyway, she then meets Marlena, a beautiful girl with a meth-addicted father, meth-dealing boyfriend, and much younger brother to take care of. The younger brother is technically the catalyst for Cat to start reminiscing about Marlena again after 15 or so years, but in the actual book he's really nothing more than a morality pet, which I disliked. There was enough meat to the story without his story line.

I also didn't really like the framing device, and the alternating points of view between Michigan and New York, the past and the present. I liked that it was from the point of view of an adult thinking back on her past, like History of Wolves, but at the same time I really did not give one iota of a damn about Cat's life in New York. It dragged down the story, and I would have preferred it if Buntin did what Fridlund did and made it apparent that this is Cat thinking back on her past, but not mention what she was up to in the present.

Continue reading this review on my blog here: https://bookwormbasics.blogspot.com/2...

Valeria M &
Marlena by Julie Buntin

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Valeria M &Marlena by Julie Buntin

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Valeria M &
Marlena by Julie Buntin