Friends Like These
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
From bestselling, award-winning author Meg Rosoff comes a gritty, intoxicating novel about a summer of unforgettable firsts: of independence, lies, love and the inevitable loss of innocence. Sharp and irresistible, it's perfect for fans of Judy Blume's Summer Sisters and Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend.
New York City. Summer 1983. A summer internship in New York was meant to be everything Beth wanted. But from the moment she arrives in the city she feels wrong: wrong hair, terrible clothes, defective smile, too obviously a virgin. Sharing a hot, cockroach-filled apartment with a couple falling out of love completes the dream picture. Then she meets her fellow interns: ambitious out-of-towner Dan, preppy rich boy Oliver, and Edie — a beautiful, brittle, magnetic, instant best friend. Irresistible people are like gravity. You can’t help being pulled towards them — can you?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Rosoff (The Great Golden) offers a heady exploration of mental health, first love, and fierce female friendships in this atmospheric read. It's 1983, and 17-year-old Beth has just arrived in New York City from Providence, R.I. Having broken a story revealing that her high school was denying students admission based on religion and race, she's now spending the summer before college interning at a major N.Y.C. publication, and is both intimidated and exhilarated by the opportunity. There, she befriends fellow intern Edie, a savvy native New Yorker who takes medication for her self-described "neurotic complex." Even as she finds her footing in her internship, Beth feels out of place ("Wrong hair, wrong shoes, wrong way of standing.... All wrong"). But Edie helps her settle into her new life and, together, the white and Jewish teens make themselves indispensable at the paper, update Beth's limited wardrobe, and bask in the air conditioning of Edie's family's apartment. Everything feels like a dream until Edie begins acting strangely, prompting rapid change in their friendship. Through the girls' intense and complicated relationship, Rosoff depicts a rousing tale that centers an ambitious yet insecure teenager learning to take control of her life and desires. Ages 14–up.
