Crux
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected 20 Jan 2026
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- 12,99 €
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- Pre-Order
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- 12,99 €
Publisher Description
''All this is, is the thing we’ve always known: we have nothing and nobody except each other. But that, we have in spades. Now, let’s go climb rocks."
'Tender, immersive, and thrilling' GABRIELLE ZEVIN, author of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
'One of the best novels I've ever read about friendship between a young man and a young woman ... Exciting and tension filled' STEPHEN KING
'A breathtaking, thrilling and unforgettable story of friendship, of hopes and dreams against a reality so harsh it broke my heart' CHRIS WHITAKER, author of All the Colours of the Dark
'Profound and stunning ... It will make you question yourself and every one of your beliefs' LIZ NUGENT, author of Strange Sally Diamond
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A heartstopping story of friendship, thrill-seeking and defying expectations: the explosive second novel from the bestselling author of My Absolute Darling
Dan and Tamma are two Californian teenagers growing up dirt poor in the shadows of the Joshua Tree National Park, one of the world’s great rock climbing meccas. Their mothers had once been teenage waitresses and best friends until their paths diverged. Now Dan’s mother spends her days locked in her room, her dreams squandered and all her hopes pinned on getting her precociously clever son out of town and away to university.
Tamma’s mother holds no such ambition for her mouthy, queer, truant-playing, snaggle-toothed daughter, who everyone but Dan believes to be a troublemaker and no-hoper. But Tamma and Dan are fuelled by dreams of becoming legendary rock climbers, of devoting their lives to summiting the most challenging climbs and defying all the expectations, both good and bad, that others have for them.
Climbing at sun-up, on cliff faces that test their bodies to the limit, is where their friendship is forged. It’s also the one thing that gives them hope. But as their final year of high school unfolds and their climbs become ever more dangerous, and their home lives ever more extreme, it’s inevitable that something is going to snap...
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This tense and staggering tale of rock climbing and family demons from Tallent (My Absolute Darling) explores the cost of following one's dreams. Best friends and high school seniors Daniel Redburn and Tamma Callahan steal every spare moment to climb the rock formations of Joshua Tree National Park. Dan is a straight-A golden child under enormous pressure from his family to shed burnout Tamma and become the first of the Redburns to attend college. Tamma, a lesbian, is a social outcast and troublemaker. Uninterested in school, she dreams of becoming the world's best rock climber. But in a landscape where everything feels "luminous with meaning" to these California desert rats, their families' entwined past bears down hard. Dan's mother, Alexandra, a runaway writer once taken in by Tamma's working-class mother, Kendra, has a congenital heart defect, but the money that could save her life has been set aside for Dan's future. Meanwhile, Tamma's chaotic home life is rife with alcoholism, neglect, and sexual assault, and further complicated by Kendra's long-held bitterness at never doing anything with her own life. As Tamma becomes increasingly reckless in her climbs and Dan contemplates a future without the one person who really understands him, each wonders if there is any "version of oneself other than the self one already finds oneself to be." The answer is in Tallent's novel, a brutal portrait of finding hope in an unforgiving landscape. It's a towering coming-of-age saga packed with muscle and heart.
